


The Theory of Everything

by HQ_Wingster



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Human, Android Gavin Reed, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, Character Development, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, Connor Deserves Happiness, Developing Relationship, Drama & Romance, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Introspection, M/M, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Partnership, Plot Twists, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Reflection, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Slow Romance, Social Experiments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-06-21 22:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15567696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HQ_Wingster/pseuds/HQ_Wingster
Summary: 'Our story began at the hearth of the fire. Our story will end amongst the ashes of our flame.'Upon the evening of June 30th, 2038 – the lives of four individual are forever changed. The young co-founders, husband and wife, of CyberLife have been preparing for their latest debuting since nine months prior, a weary physics professor finds himself lost along the streets of Detroit with nothing but the ghost of his past haunting behind his feet, and an android discovers that in order to understand this world it must stray from the lines of its code.





	1. Encounterment

**Author's Note:**

> The fandom doctor prescribed that I should write some wholesome fluff and romantic content after the months of angst that I’ve been doing so…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The  _ ‘Theory of Encounterment’  _ was summed as so: simple greetings and coincidental incidents are of a similar nature and often indistinguishable. In effect, in a timeless space wherein a constant first meets its variable, the motions of their encounterment remain unmoved whilst their paths may collide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter Audio](https://joeys-piano.tumblr.com/post/176768591016/an-audio-extra-for-the-first-chapter-of-my-fic)

_ Our story began at the hearth of the fire — upon the steeple of the World’s Forge — where if the beginning and ending were to shift, Time reversed to the creation of itself. _

_ To the premise hour when Man forged Machine from the pyres of His near-demise — erected by His of only‘s sharpest of minds? No, erected out of necessity if humanity was to survive. From ash to ash, we tailored lights that neither Heaven nor Hell could strip when the Sun wandered _ _   
_ _ amongst us no longer. Our unspoken desires came the kindling for innovation — from the spinning of the wheel, to the ever-guiding compass that led us to North, from the steam that conceived an empire, and to the transport we praised upon our merry-way. _

_ Our story will end amongst the ashes of our flame — upon the template where we have smeared the lines between Man and Machine — where the pages of our story meet the silence of the end until a new beginning rises again. _

* * *

 

Dramatics knew of no bounds as Kamski scrawled his signature. Despite the elegance that played between his fingertips when the soliloquy came to mind, there was still a childish-flair engraved to his name when Kamski drew his pencil aside. A twitch of a smile threatened to twist his lips when he gazed down at his mark. Before the flush of a hand, before the affection of another, crept down the edge of his shoulder. Down the slope of his arm, Chloe’s wedding ring brushed against Kamski’s. The hint of blue from the LED line, drawn around the centre of her ring, coaxed a similar shade from Kamski’s own.

The yellow that had flickered, briefly, flushed into a rich blue — much as the color of Chloe’s eyes, much as the color of her dress when Kamski tilted his head to the side and pressed a kiss against her lips. The familiar shade was amongst the dozens of variances that adorned their bedroom. From the fragments of a starry night commemorated on their ceiling  _ — sketched and painted when Chloe brought a few, too many cans of blue paint  _ — from the silk curtains swept to the side as the sunset to shone through  _ — much as how Kamski swept Chloe’s bangs to the side and found his reflection within her eyes _ . Wrapped under his wife’s affections, Kamski almost forgot about his poor penmanship until Chloe lifted his speech from the table. A smile peeked through her lips when she found his signature.

“I know.” Their fingers wove like phantom threads as Kamski drew a chair for Chloe to sit.  _ “I know.”  _ The second phrase, muffled by another kiss before Chloe sat next to him. “Pretty words can’t disguise poor penmanship.”

“Then a poor signature is like a bow you find on top of a gift.” As soon as the speech had been folded into thirds, Chloe reached out and tucked the piece behind the fold of her husband’s suit jacket. Even after, her fingers lingered still. Perhaps, to straighten the crook of his tie or to smooth every nook and feature that stood out to her eyes. Aligned with her analogy, all of this was like wrapping a ribbon around a gift that held no price for no figure nor could weight in gold come close in defining the  _ Elijah  _ that Chloe had known for all her life. “It might seem cheesy, but it speaks from the heart in where intentions are everclear.”

Chloe found herself lost in her husband’s eyes when she lifted her gaze. She glimpsed down the bridge of his nose before she noticed a small smile, almost peeking through before Kamski rested his arms around Chloe’s waist in a tender embrace. Only, it was considered so when their heartbeats matched in pace.

One thump here, one thump there. Another thump that kindled into deeper gratitude when they sat in silence, slightly buzzed by the love that flushed through their skin, and they shared one more kiss.

Maybe one more, definitely after this one, and maybe they should reschedule tonight’s debuting of CyberLife’s latest innovation. Before the thought came to mind, Kamski tasted it when he pulled away from Chloe. There was a slight narrow to his eyes for he and Chloe knew that they couldn’t do that. To reschedule this late into the  _ ‘game’  _ would only give their competitors an edge in the race, and Chloe could only sigh when she wiggled out from Kamski’s arms.

“I know how hard you’ve worked on this.”  _ ‘I know how hard I’ve worked on this, too’ _ \-- the thought crossed into Chloe’s mind when she rose from her seat. Every trace of her steps were cushioned by the carpet before she slid into her heels. “Nevertheless, I don’t believe penmanship will make or break how the debut will fair. Especially, if only your eyes are viewing it.” A slit in the hem of Chloe’s dress parted when she walked and pulled a shawl from the hanger. The fabric sprawled over the curve of her shoulders before Chloe glanced back, mesmerized in the moment as the sunset filtered into their bedroom and illuminated Kamski as if he were made of gold. Reeling herself back to reality wasn’t the challenging part, but finding her voice again after the remark. “So please, you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Even so — a yellow indicator flashed within Kamski’s wedding ring, almost unnoticeable before a cloud loomed from over the horizon and cloaked the room into darkness.

“Do my worries procure a burden?”  _ ‘On you,’  _ Kamski wanted to say when he felt for his belt, hoping to tighten it to keep him from falling apart. He was sure he had it on before he caught a glint of the buckle in Chloe’s hand.

She had unwrapped him in more ways than one, ever careful with every glance she stole to see him come undone. Whether it was through emotions, through touch, or simply through her own words — Chloe had a flair in deciphering Kamski with every use of her thirds. However, what if Kamski acted in a way that Chloe couldn’t predict? What if he rolled his seat towards her, plucked his belt while kissing her ring, and passed the bedroom door to the stairway? Nostalgia had a way of whacking bad ideas from life when the memory of Kamski breaking his arm on the fifth step of descent came to mind.

Luckily, Chloe was there to administer aid. Luckily, Chloe was here to do very much the same.

Whether it was with words that lulled Kamski to ease, or whether it was with the heart she wore at her sleeves — Chloe knew what to say. “Every moment I spend with you shines.”

It felt like their wedding day, all over again. The hint of sunlight that trickled past the shadows shone brightly on  _ whom  _ Kamski saw at the end of the tunnel, at the end of the aisle, before he rose from his seat and took his first steps. His socks nearly slipped from his feet, but they clung like the soles of his shoes at that moment, in memory, when he crossed the velvet carpet and met his bride before the ceremony.

“When the weather is good,” the crowns of daffodil petals spilling from Chloe’s ponytail on that evening faded into Kamski’s mind with every step beneath his gait, “when the weather is bad,” there was a shift of blue along the line of Kamski’s ring, “and when the weather is just enough.”

At the time before their wedding, at the time Kamski bridged the endless space between him and her, Chloe held out her hand and Kamski held out his own. An almost perfect replica of that moment happened now. When Kamski held out his hand, Chloe held out her own and slid Kamski’s belt into his grasp just as the clouds parted from behind the window.

_ ‘Every moment I spend with you shines, and I love each and every one of them’  _ \-- though unspoken, Kamski heard the words in his heart. Perhaps he could reconsider and reschedule the debut for another time, just to spend an eternity in this moment with Chloe by his side. Nonetheless, Kamski knew that Chloe knew that the end result would leave a taste less than satisfied over the tip of his tongue.

They had a special guest for the world to see  _ \-- a brainchild of sorts, developed in the past nine months within the course of a lifetime  _ \-- and it was only polite for the due date to come on time.

“Only five percent of offspring are truly birthed on their due date, and we are right on the dot.” Kamski wrestled into his shoes, around his belt, before guiding Chloe out from the room by the hand. The pair rushed out from the bedroom, much as they had sprinted out from the church after they proposed their  _ ‘I do’  _ so long before, and the silhouettes of passing pigeons blended with their shadows as they ran. Down the spiral stairs they went, somewhat stumbling along the way when Chloe teased Kamski for his analogy.

“I had a feeling you would say that, but I still wasn’t prepared.” Nearly slipping on a succession of the steps, Chloe clung to Kamski’s side. Kamski held onto her, never parting from her side, as they rushed to first floor and into the  _ ‘Thinking Room’. _

Where weekend chess matches would ended in standstills, with brief arguments on whether Monopoly had a place in their rush of games, the space within the home had served more as a nursery. Of a space where Chloe and Kamski molded life beneath every keystroke and tinker before consciousness, not their own, spoke from the void a fateful nine months ago. To the dot of today’s date and hour, where upon the last landing and to the right by the sliding door, Time stood still when Kamski pulled open the doors.

Past the mahogany furnish, across the expanse of tiles that ticked the finite boundaries between Man and Machine, stood a docking station that knew no bounds to where the mind could go. Magnificence couldn’t describe the chamber that swaddled a new breed of intelligence on the other side of its door. Perhaps, the word  _ ‘miracle’  _ would’ve been more apt when Kamski dragged his shoes across the floor. A drawl to every step behind him when he unlocked the docking station’s door.

A blue light along the base of the fixture illuminated in the dim lighting, the same shade along Chloe’s wedding ring when she slipped out from her heels. Leaving them behind, she plucked her glasses from her workstation. A tablet was tucked over her arm when she reunited by Kamski’s side.

In the back of Kamski’s mind, he heard Chloe’s footsteps as faint echoes that teetered over the lines of the tiles beneath her steps. He heard her breaths -- barely noticeable when they were caught between her teeth, just as the door of the docking station swung open. Unveiled within its core stood a figure that blurred the threads between Man and Machine. Forever frozen in time, a flower that would never wilt. So true did the words enter Kamski’s mind, he forgot he hadn’t known this face for all his life.

This visage  _ — sculpted by any other artist, Kamski wouldn’t have felt this way  _ — held the slightest of details that Kamski found in himself and in Chloe. The harshness of the jawline before the gentle curve of the cheeks, the parted lips that softened when they felt their first breath weeks ago before the Turing Test, but these only told a fraction of the story. Facial marks whittled the rest — chipped into the GV200’s frame over time, trial and error — and along with the ghost of the Android’s last expression before it closed its eyes.

It was almost surreal, like catching glimpses of a child from the past until fully grown, and it was time for the world to decide. To reach out its hand or ball it into a fist upon seeing Chloe and Kamski’s creation, officially, for the first time.

“We’re throwing him to the wolves,” Kamski muttered under his breath. His eyes could only trace the wires that popped from the GV200’s back, slinking back into the crevices of the docking station as the loading screen on Chloe’s tablet dispersed. “Will he make it out alive?”

 

_ BIOS 7.4 REVISION 0438 _

 

As if someone had switched on a light, a steady stream of consciousness streamed through the networks of the mind. Ones and zeros  _ — the building block of binary code  _ — infiltrated the narrowest crevices and filled the greatest expanses of where the mind began and to where it would end?, the fullest extent had yet to be sketched as Chloe and Kamski observed CyberLife’s  _ — no, the world’s —  _ finest feat of engineering.

An internal map shone across Chloe’s screen, and she mapped the boot-up with the edge of her thumb. Her breath baited between her teeth when she glanced the emergency exit  _ — a simple construct that Kamski had implemented into all of his programs  _ — from the corner of her eye.

If, and only if, a scruple of some sort had entered into the GV200’s program. Even with all the preparation Chloe and Kamski had done beforehand, there was still a margin of error to keep in mind. A flash of red singed the blue out from her wedding ring until Chloe felt Kamski’s hand. A little squeeze of reassurance before Chloe squeezed back. Though she could barely breathe when the boot-up proceeded to its next stage, she had a shoulder to lean against.

_ ‘Believe in what’ve we done’  _ — were the taps across Chloe’s palm when Kamski etched a rhythm against her skin.

 

_ LOADING OS... _

_ SYSTEM INITIALIZATION… _

 

_ CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS...      OK _

_ INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...           OK _

_ INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...              OK _

 

A subtle twitch went unnoticed. Of a pinkie finger when it curved, ever-so slightly, and brushed against the hem of its uniform. A brief calibration settled in, accounting for the weight of the clothes and for the tight collar around the neck. Inside, the GV200 felt its thirium-pump as if it were a heart. Warm and alive, circulating command lines to the rest of its biocomponents to follow as they simulated life underneath the Android’s synthetic skin. The touch of rough and smooth fabric heightened the sensors across the GV200’s fingertips as it massaged against its side. Slow traces of a circle before the word  _ ‘polyester’  _ flashed behind the GV200’s eyes.

From touch, alone, it hadn’t changed. But oh!, it felt the touch of another across its cheek. Of calloused fingers gently tilting its face, side to side. Where a thumb had perched beneath its chin as the rest of the fingers caressed its skin, feeling for a pulse of that was very much alive.

“Art imitates Life, Elijah,” came a voice from the GV200’s left. Its program registered it, recognizing it instantaneously as an image of one its creators —  _ Chloe Kamski, née Miller _ — faded into view behind the Android’s eyes.

“I often forget when I see myself, reflected back at me,” came a voice from the GV200’s right. Its other creator —  _ Elijah Kamski,  _ as its program had initially provided — was whom had approached it.

Catalogued in its touch history, reserved in a space within the GV200’s memory, parts of its arms and hands were flushed warm by thirium when the Android remembered other sensations that Kamski had lingered on it in the past. All of which were of a friendly, almost curious nature that fascinated the GV200 when its eyelids began to flutter.

 

_ MEMORY STATUS... _

_ ALL SYSTEMS    _ __ __ __ _ OK _

 

_ READY _

A blinking cursor turned into a simple command when the GV200 opened its eyes. The phantom threads of a new revolution  _ — industrialized to the highest degree of perfection  _ — were sewn with strings of awareness when it took its first steps down from its docking station. Every step, calibrated by a figure of chance in the background of its programming, felt natural beneath its gait. It could feel its creator’s’ eyes on it, watching as a stumble never came it way, and a flush of a smile twitched the corner of its lips when it made it to the final landing. Upon which, it heard it first request.

“Let’s initiate friend-mode, shall we?” Nothing less than a touch of informality at the snap of Kamski’s fingers when he met the GV200’s eyes.

A tinge of yellow whirled within its LED, a touch of humanity softened the stiffness of its features. To where its eyes dilated to adjust to the dim lighting, to where a little sway shuffled between its feet as it adjusted to it weight. It hands moved, tugging along the noose of its uniform’s collar, loosening the constraint it had at the Android’s throat, until an inch of breath coated the tip of the GV200’s tongue.

Though it could only imitate, the simple sensation flushed a bright blue LED on the side of its face temple. The beginnings of a personality had yet to surface over its features, but a subtle smirk rode over its lips. Much as how the same smirk was mirrored over Kamski’s when he narrowed his eyes. A glimpse at the GV200 was like meeting his former-self —  _ a little unruly, needed a book in manners, and a mind that moved with the speed of sound compared to those around him. _

Nothing short than what Kamski had in mind when he developed friend-mode  _ \-- bit of a fun, side-project after he finished developing the GV200’s software a little earlier than he expected.  _ But eventually, Kamski had chiseled six months into fleshing friend-mode to its fullest capabilities. It marked no surprise that a little bit of him had some sort of influence after all of this time. It was like a glimpse at a younger, cockier sibling that knew the bark of authority no less than its bite.

“You don’t plan on wearing that to your debut party, are you?” Sweeping his gaze from head to toe, Kamski felt a nudge against his side when Chloe lightly elbowed him. A disapproving look painted across her eyes, but her smile softened the reproach when her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose.

_ “Wouldn’t you like to know?”  _ A bark  _ \-- nothing short of an instigation for something more if Kamski hadn’t known whom he was dealing with  _ \-- and a lovely, blue light accompanied the GV200 when it left the  _ ‘Thinking Room’. _

* * *

_ Detroit — this is where it all begins. _

The expression bore its weight in gold  _ — trademarked by CyberLife, on the eve it illuminated the streets of Detroit.  _ Like slips of fortune, strung through the bur oaks and nestled within their leaves, a few would fall. Caught in one’s hair, slipped between the neck and collar if so pleased, eased into a bag or along a palm if so desired — this phrase was the pride and joy that Detroit had built itself upon as day eclipsed to night.

As the streets, once in slumber, surged forth with life from the four corners of the world, a fairytale splashed the ambience with flecks of gold. With every brush stroke, new paths emerged by the aid of the metallic strips — escorting guests to the very heart of the city. All were welcome to join in on the celebration  _ — that was the signature quirk of the Kamski’s when they sprung parties, much as how they sprung opportunities with every shake of the hand. _

_ “A word or two for the cameras, please!”  _ Of the volume bar that materialized over a reporter’s face, three notches lowered when the mic returned to the man’s lips. A thin trail of an earbud’s cord distracted a gaze from the screen before it was brushed aside. Hitched to the edge of the phone case as the screen was angled back to where it was before in the viewing of the live footage.  _ “Mr. and Mrs. Kamski, will you be unveiling what passed the Turing Test on June 7th, a few weeks ago?” _

Never skipping a beat, as if he had a script in his mind, Elijah Kamski leaned into the mic.  _ “Indeed, we are. The world has come to expect the unexpected before you or I have the chance to do so.” _

A tilt of laughter rang from Elijah’s lips before he turned away, as if the reporter and the cameras were nothing more than a blur when he found himself lost within Chloe’s company. Hand in hand, as immersed as the starry night above them, they drew away from the chaos of the world and settled in a haven where they could walk and chat under the trees. A slip of paper  _ \-- cursive with CyberLife’s trademark  _ \-- slipped from a branch and landed over Elijah’s head. Chloe reached onto her tiptoes and drew it out, tucking it to the front of Elijah’s breast pocket before they faded from the camera’s view.

Pausing the livestream, glancing through the window as the city lights faded out from the night, spades of pink and blue illuminated the edge of Connor’s face when he surveyed the skyline. So little or so much had changed, that even a pedestrian light perplexed Connor when he saw it. He tilted his head slightly when he was struck with a memory of when he wanted the light to turn green. At the time, he carried a bicycle underneath his touch when he was simply a face amongst dozens across a crosswalk towards the local university.

_ ‘Out of all the things to remember,’  _ Connor thought. He rested his head against the window. The tuft of his bangs bounced against his forehead, hovered a bit when the A/C turned up by a notch. Having noticed the slight spike in Connor’s internal temperature, the taxi reacted before he could. Connor was thankful for the brief relief coaxed him to close his eyes. The evening traffic drawled at its usual snail’s pace.

_ “We will be reaching our destination at [Campus Martius Park] in 3.5 miles.” _

Upon the passing of a speed bump, Connor’s eyelids fluttered for a moment before he sat up, straightening his neck. At some point, his earbuds had slipped out before he glanced out the window again.

Trinkets of gold flashed across the lens of his glasses when he found his gaze following some of the gems of the night. In the trees, he spotted the slips of CyberLife’s trademark as if they were a cookie crumbs leading to the crown of Detroit’s design. But if he thought like a Kamski and could regard the world through their eyes, these slips didn‘t differ from an endless span of stars — finally, close enough for humanity to touch.

Perhaps, even for Connor’s touch if his fingers weren’t blocked by a pane of glass. If his fingers were searching for a scratch to satisfy their itch, he touched and straightened his bowtie out instead. Bit by bit, fingers like needles as they folded around the knot. Afterwards, Connor hitched his hands here and there in the middle of his suspenders as he tracked the miles he had left. Behind the knot of his bowtie, he couldn’t neglect the knot that formed in the back of his throat.

The sensation was nothing new — albeit, there were moments where Connor wished it wouldn’t have to express itself now. It was like a partner that clung to his elbow and looked into his eyes. To see him move, to see some sort of twitch to know it had left its mark on him, alas — Connor wasn’t one to break from his poker face. His mind could only reflect the best of itself, not the worst it often heard itself say. Merely repeating the thought within the realm of his mind quelled the bouts of worry lodged in Connor’s throat. He couldn’t swallow, not yet, but could speak if he had as the taxi slowed along the edge of Campus Martius Park. Not a mistake within its program when it parked, exactly twelve inches away from the foot of the curb.

_ “Your destination will be towards your right. Thank you for riding with Detroit Taxi.” _

From an overhead compartment on the roof of the vehicle, a retinal scanner was lowered until it found one of Connor’s eyes. He squinted as a blue light traced the image of his eye. As soon as the procedure was done, as soon as he heard a notification from the instrument, Connor pulled away and the retinal scanner withdrew into its overhead compartment. After the transaction was complete, after a debit dug a modest hole into Connor’s bank account, the taxi unlocked its doors. Connor’s sneakers brushed the curve of the street, first, as he got out.

With a clasp behind him, the door bolted to its hinge by the law of magnetics, the taxi drove away. Left, almost like a ghost of the night if Connor hadn’t turned to watch it leave.

A part of him wished he had stayed inside to ride through the networks of Detroit to see how much had changed, but Chloe and Elijah didn’t invite him  _ — personally —  _ to do any of that.

Truth be told, they wouldn’t be surprised if he had done so. Regardless, Connor had decided while coming here, spending a quarter after fifty and another for the trip back home, so he could congratulate his friends. Face to face, instead of a simple call or a text. Connor knew they would appreciate the sight of him very much.

To some extent, Connor could’ve dressed a little more formally for the occasion. Just as his gaze caught glimpses of the party guests, Connor readjusted his glasses with his knuckles to avert further eye contact with anyone. No shame in appearances, but people were quick to judge the wrapping before ripping a present apart. At least, that was what Elijah had mentioned once at a Christmas party a few years ag _ o — but he might as well had cursed it while cracking a fortune cookie with quick haste, lodging fragments underneath his nail before he thought better of it. _

_‘We’re all as human as each other, no matter what we try to cover up’_ — Connor mused on his thought when he followed the cobbled path towards the centre of the party. Hands tucked within his pockets as he walked, nearly sidestepping between tight-knitted crowds before he looked up to the stars.

The sight he had always known from his kitchen window was here in the city, muffled by the orange lights strung through the trees as Connor wandered to the centre of the universe. Whereupon that point, a slow orchestra played unheard by the bustling crowd of investors, business leaders, CyberLife personnel, and the occasional catering staff with a plate of small tidbits before the main course. Of which, Connor helped himself to bacon-wrapped chestnut when he stood near the orchestra. When he was close, enough where he could scan the black dots of their sheet music and feel the warmth of every string under the draw of a bow, the quintet picked up where it left off with its first movement.

Of a haunted melody that lulled the entropy, the chaos surrounding Connor, into a standstill. Upon which, fragments of the world had become clearer in front of his eyes. Easier for him to focus on, easier for him to comprehend, as Time dragged between the second and minute hands of its clock face. The quiver of the first violin resonated a shift, the turn of mechanical clogs in a space where Time may have never existed. As Connor rocked back and forth over his feet, a slow sway rocked his hips in time to the rhythm of the strumming bass. Where he could etch an infinity sign with just his movements, alone, in a horizontal figure-eight.

Every moment that had passed in a blur, mere colors from the corner of his eyes, were finally close enough for Connor to reach. So much so, Connor wouldn’t have mind joining a dance while the night was still young. Beyond the flaps of tailored suit, beyond the twirl of a gem-sewn dresses, Connor noticed the enchanted marriage between touch and humanity. Despite where everyone had come from, despite what or why they were here, they danced beneath a starry night within the width of another’s touch. More than a coincidence, more than a simple greeting before one hand curved around the other and they spun between each other’s steps. Along the grass, along the cobbled path, along where the fireflies spun in a couple’s centripetal force when the orchestra of five was finally heard.

When the fragile breath of the cello resonated against Connor’s ear, he realized where his mind had taken him to. A faint image of his younger-self came into view  _ — whom he was a different man with a different life.  _ With a surname branded as the ring around his finger, Connor felt the intimate approach of another around the palm of his hand.

In the nostalgia, a matching ring glinted from the corner of his eye as Connor twirled a shadow into his embrace. Once a person, but now long faded after the years had slipped by. And within   
the memory or figment of his imagination, Connor felt the departure of his partner’s hand when she etched into his hand  _ ‘goodbye’ _ . From where the warmth had always been, all Connor felt was a chill when his hand fell to his side. It felt like he had been slapped. Not by any other hand except his own when Connor leaned his cheek into his hand.

The cello’s elegant soliloquy accompanied the cracks of his beating heart. Beating still, for life moved on -- even after another had grown still. Breath hitched at the back of his throat, Connor turned himself by a quarter before he looked to the crowd once more. Perhaps to find where Chloe and Elijah were before he retreated for a moment’s glance. However, if dare say, Connor witnessed something a little more.

_ ‘The size of a mass is not proportional to its volume’  _ — the thought flickered behind Connor’s eyes when he was caught in a gravity, much stronger than that of the Earth’s. For standing on the other side of the quintet — as if where Newton had sat before an apple fell upon his head — Connor found a dancer. Simply a party guest without a partner of his own, but the man accompanied the cello in its song. One-step, two-step, acting as if he had a partner all along in his arms while a bit of a ballroom routine clicked the edge of his dress shoes with every step beneath his gait. The man waltzed as if no one was watching, and Connor couldn’t tear his gaze away.

He was mesmerized, but why? Has dancing alone in the dark awaken something, hidden deep inside? Connor didn’t know. His top teeth gently grazed his bottom lip before he felt every step underneath him, for every step that it took around the circumference of the quintet until he was close. Enough where the other man knew of Connor’s presence, enough where Connor could hear the stars laughing in the Heavens for what he was going to do.

Connor closed his eyes, just as his glasses slipped. When he opened them, a hint of a smile grew from the edge of his eyes as a conversation grew at a moment’s glance.

Garnered by the slow pirouette from the edge of where the other man stood until he bridged the path, one loop at a time, until he was at Connor’s doorstep. Quite an inch away from bumping into Connor’s knees with a classic smirk riding on his face  _ — a look so familiar it parted Connor’s lips.  _ Before Connor found his footing in this space called Reality, who’s saying a little of a fantasy wasn’t already at play?

Words hitched at the back of Connor’s throat, he hoped his words could suffice what little he could imagine while in front of this man’s eyes.

“My name is Connor.” A slight bow to his head, where the tuft of his bangs moved with the wind at the mere utterance of his gesture. Just as his hands trembled before reaching out, a bare shiver before a shake if the man in front of him were to reach out as well. “I’m a professor at the local university.”

“Reed,” spoken as if he had been referencing the weather before Reed extended his hand. A firm, yet gentle grasp left a lingering trace across Connor’s palm before he pulled away. An air of arrogance ruffled Reed, much the same as the wind ruffled the looseness of his shirt collar -- tucked under his blazer as the lights in the trees dimmed ever-so slightly with a simple tilt of his head. “I’m gonna guess that you study the marriage between a student’s sanity and their GPA.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Connor’s laughter chimed like a flute to the quintet’s affairs as the viola serenaded the cello in a sweeping duet. “But my field of teaching is more of the observance between what is now and what will be.”

_ ‘Like Life’  _ \-- the thought hardly went unnoticed in Connor’s mind. Called by a signal that only he could hear, or perhaps drawn to something that only  _ he  _ noticed despite Connor looking to where he couldn’t, the pages of their conversation paused abruptly when Reed turned his head.

It wasn’t hard to notice that a contradiction of errors had stifled what Connor thought he could change. On one hand, he believed that he had found a light at the end of the tunnel -- where no matter what had happened, everything was just enough. On the other hand, Connor had found himself struck by the obvious fact that nothing was as easy as a fantasy would say in fact. He was not a door to open, nor a riddle to solve. Rather, he was a mirror without a reflection when Reed recognized something that Connor didn’t have -- as if Connor’s mind had unveiled the worst of what had happened in a mere glance.

Whichever happened, Reed retreated to where Connor couldn’t follow. Something deep inside began to ache  _ \-- an urge that would soon go away if Connor weighed between the choices that he could do with an outstretched hand  _ \-- but he stood still. Was he to simply stand, like he had done years ago, and possibly watch another step into the oblivion that they could never return from?

Some part of Connor deemed it be ludicrous. An even smaller fraction believed it to be true when he lowered his gaze.

“It’s not goodbye forever, you know.”

Connor lifted his head, just as Reed looked back at him from where he was heading. The wind blew from the north side, tucking strands of Connor’s bangs behind his ears. In terms of Reed, it simply blew his hair forward and curtained his eyes. Where a trace of the side of his forehead had become noticeable as a faint light emanated from the spot.

“If this is now,” perhaps fairytales did exist as slips of metallic paper fluttered down from the trees, passing by Reed like cherry blossoms of the night, “I imagine we’ll reunite for the  _ ‘will be.’” _

His words no louder than a whisper, no louder than the soft pitscatto humming over the principal violinist’s strings, but reading Reed’s lips was easy to Connor. It was no more difficult than observing how celestial bodies collided in the twist of Time, at least in a computer simulation when Connor watched as Reed disappeared into the crowd. A faint trace of a whirling LED illuminated in the darkness, yellow before it blushed blue behind a thicket of gold slips. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or a flash of someone’s phone, but something inside Connor twitched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve never been more scared of the English language than after I finished writing this first chapter. At some points, I think my writing leaned more towards the British side?, I’m unsure.


	2. Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The  _ ‘Theory of Moments’  _ came with the turn of a page, with the etch of an unwritten pen when it trailed past the lines: upon which, memories felt tangible when swept by its meaning and the viscerality of its nature. There was a direct proportionality --  _ a direct weigh-in _ \-- of how the variables coincided, though they knew not of each other’s presence. Even so, the faded footprints of one were simply the following steps for another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the first chapter was told from the perspective Kamski and Connor’s pov, I wanted this chapter to be narrated by the GV200’s work-mode and friend-mode: Gerald and Gavin. Thanks to my pal, Feu from tumblr, the names left an impression on me and our little headcanon has been integrated into the main story~
> 
> [ Connor and Gavin’s first encounter ](http://kuinshi.tumblr.com/post/176773544896/its-not-goodbye-forever-you-know-connor) \-- I received a very generous fanart by @kuinshi for chapter one and personally, I think it captures the atmosphere very well~
> 
> [ [ Audio ](https://joeys-piano.tumblr.com/post/176985985451/if-you-had-spent-your-entire-life-with-a-quiet) ]

**June 7th, 2038 - 9:04:06 a.m.**   
**Kamski’s Residence**

No one knew where the great leap forward would come or from whom, but he certainly knew of the catalyst behind it. His tongue trailed the thin line between his lips, froze momentarily at the middle before it swept to a corner of his mouth. Where for a moment, what laid beyond his rationality felt like a heavy defeat across his cheek. A muted-slap -- which only he could hear when dust particles collided under a swinging light and anticipation ate away at the lack of soul when all he felt was nothing. For from nothing, there came something that would accelerate the world beyond its natural understanding of now. The piece in question was hinted through an LED, whirled along the right side of his face. Where it seemed, an infant took the shape of a man as his fingers trailed down the slope of his neck and followed the trace of a collarbone.

The rules of imitation knew no bounds when he sniffed, scrunching an ounce of expression as his face pulled through the billows of a canvas. Of a soft-felt hoodie, stenciled with an insignia of an LED frozen in mid-motion. Just below the hoodie strings, just below Mrs. Kamski’s touch when she patted his chest. Her fingers folded as the fabric rubbed below her fingertips. Resistance burrowed against her touch when she skimmed over the insignia, but all of which was in her design as she studied her canvas.

Strands of a fringe slid along the side of Mrs. Kamski’s forehead until her canvas reached out, folding the hair behind her ear. She looked up, a knowingly smile twitched the corner of her lips in an instance before she whispered, _“Thank you.”_

He almost looked away, only catching the words from the corner of his eye as Mrs. Kamski shifted around him. “Did…?” A scruple of some sort had entered into his program _\-- this, he was sure_ \-- as his throat constricted without his regard. “Did you say something?” He didn’t quite meet her eyes the same as he did before, standoffish when he reached for his hands. His fingers knitted between each other.

“I said…” Mrs. Kamski’s eyes focused on the flickering LED, reflected in a mirror. She held up her hand and the blue light enclosed around her wedding ring gradually eased the LED into a standstill. As the color within the light washed between the three it could choose from before it settled on a faint blue. Almost impossible to discern, but the blue grew with strength as Mrs. Kamski eased the mind _\-- the body and the soul_ \-- that suppressed every twitch in her presence. “I said, _‘Thank you.’”_

She didn’t lower her hand until she was sure that whatever happened beyond her reasoning had quelled within the thoughts of whom she loved. When the peck of a sheepish smile glossed over the lips and a speck of a wayward glance softened to her gaze, Mrs. Kamski promised that she would be back. A few errands to tend to and a dress to slip in before she could tend to whom needed her the most right now.

Such a _‘whom’_ nodded when he faced a mirror once more. His eyes closed when he heard the soft shuffle of Mrs. Kamski’s bare steps across the carpet. When he opened his eyes, a sense of humanity lingered still along the cracks stenciled within his code.

In this hall of mirrors, spawned from the depths of the Kamski’s closet, it was easy to lose one’s self in a prison of no other design. The thought swirled a mesh of dust in the back of his mind when he followed down the length of his hoodie and looked at his sleeve. Hitching the fabric upwards with a finger or two, felt it crawl down every inch of his skin before it settled near his wrists. Before the cuff roosted along a bulge before the emergence of his hand. A shade or two shy before his fingertips grasped the hem. Rolling the fabric -- back and forth -- as a scatterplot of signals tingled up his arm.

A twitch, unnoticed by any other eye except his own, felt every wrinkle down to the seams as he shifted. The bagginess of his sleeves swayed, much like a hammock that materialized behind his eyes, and they swayed as if he were no other man than just himself.

A smile curved near the corners of his lips. Bit by bit, a laugh peppered through his teeth. Quiet and then sharp and then dull, once more, when a mere hiss came out in the end. And then afterwards, a grin peered through the splinters of a cracked mask as the pieces riddled down his face -- bouncing over the tips of his toes when he felt the warmth of the carpet beneath his feet. He rubbed the cuff of his sleeve across a mirror and marveled at the creation that stared back at him.

One blink, two blinks, a little more than just enough as he spun in a lazy circle. Minute calibrations tinkered every side-step before a fumble, before a subtle twist of the ankle as he twirled slightly in place. Arms out, bent like that of a danseur’s, almost as what he had seen when Mr. Kamski rolled his steps forward before unfurling into the embrace of his wife’s arms as they danced in the _‘Thinking Room’_ \-- on those long nights where all that mattered was within a palm’s reach.

Alone like this, perhaps he could pretend that he slowly circled with a facet of whom he could truly be. Oh, the narrow of a gaze had never felt so enticing until he did it on his own and faltered at whom looked back at him through the glass. A break of character, but he liked it.

This ebb and flow was _\-- perhaps --_ life’s greatest beauty as a strand hovered before his eyes at the henceforth of a respectful bow. Simply to feel every twist and turn of the hoodie across his body -- here and there, a soft mesh against his skin with a fluidity of its own accord. Nothing less than perfect when he held himself, arms crossed, and found a speck of color splashed across his cheeks. Dotted -- much like the intricacies of creation when molded by such hands.

To humans, this would be blush. To a machine, was this a flaw to his code?

A stroke down the curve of his cheek detailed the tiny bumps ingrained to his canvas. A lingering trail from his fingertips stenciled the uncertainty that had befallen his tongue as his breathing eased. Breath hitched at the back of his throat, it was rather hard to believe that synthetic skin could mold so easily to the touch.

Bounced -- not as much as the hoodie, but it spelled an essence that a mere program couldn’t grasp. His sensors knew of his touch, riddling it back to his main processor. Even so, as mundane as a finger could be, as fascinated as he was when he mapped the rest of his face. While doing so -- caught a glimpse of his other side in the hall of mirrors, and he admired through the corner of his eye.

For humans, this was nothing short than a holiday with vanity. But between these phantom threads of the self and reality, how could he not stand and admire? Sculpted by the very same hands that birthed his consciousness, how could he not lavish in all the gifts given to him? Already, his program registered and recognized that _this_ \-- his fingers trailed across a reflection as his breath fogged the glass -- was who he was. That _this_ \-- tinges of his skin faded back as white plastic skimmed the corner of the mirror’s edge -- was who he ought to be.

Nevertheless -- as quickly as it were to reveal the hints of the machine within, as quickly as the white plastic dispersed when he pulled his hand away from the glass. Synthetic fluid filled the cracks to his design at a simple turn of his head and he reunited with her _\-- more specifically, Mrs. Kamski as she waded through the closet with a summer’s hat bloomed over the top of her head._ Her hair bound to braids as she fiddled with the last elastic hair tie in the palm of her hand.

_“...Gerald?”_ A slight shake to her fringe when she ducked under a few of her husband’s overcoats, and she stood tall within the same space as her -- to refer to a machine as one’s _‘son’_ was ludicrous, but the affectionate title held its place in Mrs. Kamski’s heart when she crept quietly across the carpet.

The LED to the right of her son’s forehead teetered over the edge between blue and then yellow -- unsure of the probability of his next move -- before Mrs. Kamski shook her head with smile. Every turn and every glimpse into a mirror reflected the same image as Mrs. Kamski took her son by the hand. Carefully clasping her palm against his own and leaning, softly, against him. The side of her forehead tucked next to his arm as they stood in front of a full-length mirror. Were those tears? -- welled in the corners of Mrs. Kamski’s gaze when she realized how much her child had grown. Nostalgia curtained over her eyes, blindfolding her from the mere minutes she and him had shared in this timeless space.

Mrs. Kamski tilted upwards to at least catch her son’s eyes. “Or if not...” her voice trailed when she softly nudged for her son to meet her eyes, “...are you Gavin?”

With a similar intent to its worth, a curve of a smile traced Gerald’s lips after he analyzed Mrs. Kamski’s own. “Of course, I am.” Not an ounce of strain dirtied the gesture before it fell from his lips. Something in his program compelled him to look forward, to revisit his and Mrs. Kamski’s reflection as it never wavered in place.

“Did Elijah change you to friend-mode when I was gone?” A look that only spelled that this had happened before stenciled minute changes across Mrs. Kamski’s features. She spoke in a whisper for only Gerald and she could hear as in the background, Mr. Kamski fumbled around in the bedroom for a tie he had misplaced. There was a thump back there -- of when Mr. Kamski stubbed his toe -- and the brief silence that fell afterwards only spoke of the curses a man could only mouth while his wife and son were near.

A moment or two longer, they might’ve heard something. However, Mrs. Kamski didn’t wait in silence just to hear a shred of humanity from her dear husband. No, she spied on a small tremor splashed across Gerald’s smile before it faltered.

_“Elijah,”_ the name took a turn across Gerald’s tongue, “does as he pleases, and there is still so much for me to learn.”

A different connotation darkened the lines across Gerald’s face when he studied his complexion, a reminder flickered behind his gaze when he realized that this face he had grown to admire wasn’t just his, alone. Dormant within his program, simply one command away from locking him into a briefcase, the _true_ Gavin had yet to emerge. Deep in slumber or perhaps, active in the background as he embraced life in all of it passive-manner. Thumb pressed against his lips at the little script and fumbled lines that Gerald waded through in his simple, yet twisted lie.

It seemed that Mrs. Kamski didn’t know him as well as she may’ve thought when she didn’t bat an eyelash. Simply focused on evening out the hoodie strings dangling over Gerald’s chest, and she nudged onto her tiptoes and pressed a warm kiss across Gerald’s cheek. Much as a mother would do for her son -- aided with a delay of a few seconds on Gerald’s part before he wiped the affection with the back of his hand. Merely grazing the touch -- not wiping it from his memory when his fingers curved from over his cuff and traced the spot of Mrs. Kamski’s kiss. Nearly lost to its significance before he heard Mrs. Kamski -- her voice merely an echo in the back of Gerald’s mind.

“Let’s put learning on hold for now. Elijah and I want to take you somewhere.” Mrs. Kamski squeezed Gerald gently in her arms. “How does that sound?”

_‘I would have it any other way’_  -- turned to just, _“Perfect”_ as Gerald eased into Mrs. Kamski’s hold. Snugged in her embrace, his arms and hands carefully hovered near the back of Mrs. Kamski’s shoulders. Appropriate enough where a simple, rhythmic tap with his fingers lured a bit laughter from Mrs. Kamski’s lips when she hugged Gerald a little tighter. Enough where he could almost feel her heartbeat against his chest.

“We’ll have to switch you to work-mode, though.” Mrs. Kamski loosened the embrace, ever-so slightly. ”Your processor won’t be able to handle the strain of so many people at once, but don’t you worry.” She lightly tapped Gerald’s LED as it whirled in thought. “Your big brother will take care of you.” Her fingers traced over the circular notion of blue before they trailed down to Gerald’s shoulders, squeezing him gently with a glint of _something_ in her eyes.

Lips parted, unsure of what to say, Gerald could only guess of what his next move would be. A blinking cursor was all he could see behind his eyes, breath hitched at the back of his throat when he repeated Mrs. Kamski’s words in his mind. _“How can you be so sure?”_

“So sure of what?” An innocuous tilt to her head as Mrs. Kamski pulled her touch away.

Like how Gerald had done before, Mrs. Kamski garnered a taste for the innocent game. To rehear what could always be repeated, and Gerald knew that Mrs. Kamski would drop the game if it proved itself as an unwilling intrusion to his mission. How he knew? That _\-- in of itself_ \-- was an entirely different game when human unpredictability held no account in Gerald’s program, and it was basically the luck of the draw as Gerald surveyed Mrs. Kamski’s vitals.

Eighty-eight heartbeats a minute, a hundred over seventy in terms of blood pressure -- conditions were stable and yet, such stability burrowed discord into Gerald’s system. His thirium-pump networked blue blood to the internal spikes in his pseudo-biology, gradually stabilizing his vitals to match Mrs. Kamski’s when he found courage over his tongue.

“How can you be so sure that _he,”_ a noticeable jerk to Gerald’s head, “will take care of me?”

“He’s swaddled your conscious since birth.” Mrs. Kamski came closer, still, and held Gerald’s cheek in her palm. “When you spoke for the first time through a command line, I saw something in him change.”

Gerald held onto Mrs. Kamski’s wrist, mesmerized by the pulse that ticked underneath her skin. She didn’t elaborate on what she meant but perhaps -- fooled by Gerald’s white lie -- she assumed that he knew. But alas, understanding humans was as difficult as what it meant to alive -- neither of which held no purpose for what Gerald could do when he could only smile and do nothing else.

To his fortune, Mrs. Kamski wore her heart at the end of her wrists. “Gerald loves you as his brother. Nothing will ever change how he looks out for you, even now. Does this please your curiosity?”

_“Thank you.”_ The gratitude rolled under his breath -- accompanied by a tightness that coiled around Gerald’s thirium-pump when Mrs. Kamski asked if he could switch to work-mode. An added _‘please’_ that felt as tender as her embraces. At the sound of which, Gerald’s LED flashed yellow as he blinked several times. Feigning the swift change in his program as his features -- and even his touch -- grew rigid through simple reminders. Poised, he knew his script well enough when he bowed at a desirable angle. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Elijah and I have an appointment.” Mrs. Kamski combed through Gerald’s hair with her fingers, undoing all the knots that bounced with every sway to his head. “We would like for you to join us.”

“I’ll prepare the car.” Networked to the Kamski’s internet grid, Gerald could almost hear the _click_ of the car doors when he remotely unlocked the vehicle. A subtle smirk faded over his lips, just as quickly as it had disappeared when he remembered that there were mirrors surrounding him. Just before he followed the mission statements illuminated behind his gaze, Gerald caught a last, fleeting glimpse of his reflection. Before his fingers tugged at the collar of his hoodie, before Mrs. Kamski’s gaze fixated on the slight appeal that his fingers had to the hoodie’s touch.

“I’ve always wanted to ask you about this.” Every step beneath her gait was accompanied by a drawl to Mrs. Kamski’s touch when she skimmed the mirrors with her fingertips. “When you look into the mirror, what do you see?”

Gerald’s gaze lingered still even though he tried to look away. “Just a machine.” Reality trickled down to his senses, discarding the self-discovery and peck of identity he realized within himself. “Nothing more, nothing less.” He didn’t wait a moment longer to find out what Mrs. Kamski’s response was, and she wouldn’t expect him to do so. Gerald simply walked out as ever step beneath his gait was towards the missions predestined for him. As a bout of humanity was concealed behind a bird cage -- once more -- and he couldn’t feel the flutter of its wings near what represented his heart.

Even with this in mind, Gerald lingered beside the Kamski’s bedroom door just as Mrs. Kamski emerged from the closet and waltzed into her husband’s arms. He couldn’t quite hear the conversation between them -- spoken in whispers as they circled in a simple dance, as far as Gerald could imagine  -- but he caught a hint of what was on Mrs. Kamski’s mind.

_“I’m not sure how I should feel, being the first person he’s ever lied to.”_

* * *

**June 30th - 19:34:17  
Campus Martius Park**

_‘Blood on my name’_ \-- as if the phrase was nothing more than a balance between life and death, it echoed in the back of every bartender’s mind when they topped off a glass when asked to refill.

For in a world where people nursed their pain with medicine, the pharmacist-front of a bar counter was perhaps the most dangerous examination table for every practitioner on the other side. Dual-edged in chemistry and health, whom was to say that the drink being poured now would kill the patron that asked for it so? What circumstance would dictate the giver as the murderer when the taker inflicted this upon their own health?

However so, assistance in numbing pain was a two-way street in Alana’s eyes when she grabbed a cold beer from the icebox below her counter. Her eyes scanned across the line, watching carefully of every patron to her care. For her eyes alone, she could see how many glasses or bottles that they had consumed during their duration here. Making out the slight stupor and twitches to their body language was almost second nature as Alana fished for a bottle opener from her pockets. Cracked the top off from a cold brew, scooped the cap into her palm, and watched the bottle slide across the counter until it reached its desired patron. Bumped against the knuckles of Mr. Anderson, waking him up from a stir of sleep.

“Dream of it and I shall receive.” A low chuckle resonated from his throat when he brought the rim to his mouth. A generous portion sloshed down the back of his throat, and maybe half of the beer was gone by the time Alana checked on him again.

She rolled her eyes, brushing her bangs to the side of her face. Just as Mr. Anderson placed his drink down, his hand brushed against a napkin with a small mountain of peanuts on top of it. Courtesy of Alana, courtesy to keep Mr. Anderson’s mouth occupied as reality settled into his distorted mind.

Five drinks in and not even twenty minutes had passed. Mr. Anderson had a thirst that couldn’t be quenched -- however, if he kept this up, he could easily be upon Death’s door without intervention.

The blood to alcohol ratio was merely a guess in Alana’s mind, but she had gotten better with guessing as the night grew young with every face that dragged itself upon a stool and stayed at her counter for as long as their leisure. It wasn’t typical for people to stay on one makeshift island for long before casting out their raft and drifting to another makeshift bar somewhere in the vicinity. Just to grab another drink when one bartender denied the request and somewhere inside, Alana hoped for the best of Mr. Anderson.

He didn’t seem to mind shelling a few peanuts into his mouth, chewing slowly when he stared at his reflection in the mahogany counter. A pause in mid-chew, where his eyes narrowed as a sort of realization dawned on him.

“I believe you were invited personally by the Kamskis.” Alana filled in the cracks to Mr. Anderson’s memory as she folded peanuts into a napkin, passing it to a patron down the counter as they neared their tipping point. “In the end, you decided that they were a waste of your so you’ve been here since you’ve arrived.”

A lopsided smile held Mr. Anderson’s face together as he shook his head.

“I confessed all of that, huh?” Mr. Anderson crushed a few peanuts in his palm before he grabbed his drink. Merely to swirl it around in his hand, not yet ready for a sip. “You sure you’re not a nun in disguise? Here to cleanse my soul?”

“I believe the spirits are doing more than I could ever do, Mr. Anderson.”

The word play wasn’t lost to either of them, but it was only enough to warrant a smile and maybe a low chuckle if Mr. Anderson could manage. Under his breath, he sighed as the beer burned the back of his throat. The heat grew more intense as the seconds dragged -- prompted a few peanuts into his mouth to keep him occupied as the burn subsided into something more than manageable.

“Would you like for me to call you a taxi?” Alana’s fringe crept over her gaze, curtaining nearly half of it when her finger hovered below a call button beneath the counter. The embroidered _ST300_ across her uniform held Mr. Anderson’s attention as he began to register Alana’s words. The label had nothing to do with anything, but simply to mark that she was invited to be here amongst with the other bartenders stationed around the park. However so, the label was the only thing reflected in Mr. Anderson’s eyes when he shook his head.

“My son’s picking me up.” He patted down the front of his coat for his phone. “He should be coming soon.” Mr. Anderson’s hands meandered around the bulges of his pockets to feel for the shape of his old caller.

“I’ll get an escort to walk -- “

“I might be old, but I can still walk. Just fine.” Mr. Anderson slapped his thigh when he slid off his stool. He appeared out of it, somewhat lost to the chaos and colors and lights and people that suddenly appeared in front of him, but he carried himself well as he took his first steps. Stumbled a little bit on the third, but it would to happen to anyone. Actually, he turned around and grabbed his beer to drink on the go before turning around. Only, to turn back again to wrestle a few bills from his wallet.

Pay from a client wasn’t necessary since the Kamskis took care of all of the expenses, chipping a handsome envelope with society’s green blood for all the bartenders at the end of the night, but Alana couldn’t stop Mr. Anderson even if she pushed the money back into his hands. He was adamant about doing what he knew was right, and Alana could only nod and utter her thanks just as Mr. Anderson turned and walked away -- for real, this time.

Mr. Anderson’s bills remained in her grasp as she grabbed a towel, wiping down whatever mess was left behind. Until all she could see was a clear reflection of her image, and then she felt comfortable with sliding the money into her pocket. Tucking it safely behind her apron just as a new patron filled the new empty seat to her bar counter.

As much of a reckless abandon that Alana could see -- how the various pieces to the man’s attire were ruffled and unbuttoned to a comfortable degree -- he was soft spoken when he greeted her. His eyes focused on her reflection across the counter than to Alana, herself. However, she didn’t put that against him when even she couldn’t look at the man directly while a tinge of heat tickled the back of her neck. Her lips somewhat parted when she managed to steal a glance, and the triplet’s rhythm that drummed beneath the man’s touch lured her back to reality and of where she was.

_“Champagne in a bottle or champagne in a glass…?”_ His voice faded along the end as he looked to his right. The other patrons were lost in their little worlds, for all they could see were their respective drinks and the peanuts Alana had provided them with. A few had bottles, a few had glasses, and the fifty-fifty split teetered the man’s thoughts from one side to the other until Alana slid a glass in front of him.

“For at least the first drink, we can skip the bottle for later.” Blowing her bangs away from her eyes, Alana reached behind her for a bottle. Pulling the cork from its mouth, she tipped the neck above the rim of the man’s glass.

Her eyes searched for his from beneath the fleck of bangs that curtained his gaze from her, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for without looking while doing so. It was an unaccomplished mission to interest and curiosity, but Alana remembered the phrase that drifted in the back of her mind. How it flowed into her thoughts and restrained her from doing as she wanted so.

First and foremost, she was a professional. Second to keep in mind, the life of the man in front of her was within her hands and any attraction she felt in her heart served merely as a distraction. For she was a bartender -- _a pharmacist of the most dangerous medicine_ \-- her line of duty had to stand in the foreground of her thoughts when she topped the man’s glass. A film of frothy bubbles rose to the rim, gently brushed to the side when the man leaned down and blew on them softly.

With the glass, he didn’t quench his thirst. Merely swished the neck around between his fingers before he finally lifted his gaze from a reflection and looked at Alana, truly, for the first time. A glint of a smile suited perfectly over his lips, enamored by what a reflection couldn’t convey about her. So suddenly, a flush of heat crept along Alana’s skin when she hid behind her bangs. Only to brush them away when she tended to her other patrons, simply too busy her mind and her body of how fast her heart had raced in such a short span of time.

Only to fall back into the familiar rhythm when she returned to her post, and the heard the soft slur of the man’s voice was nearly lost to Alana when he spoke.

“What would you say are faces to a mob?” Something so simple and yet, it didn’t make much sense at first. If he was flirting with her, perhaps reciprocating a _feeling_ that so easily painted Alana’s face, she had never heard of a sentence-starter like this before.

She could work it out in her mind but then, wouldn’t the man be waiting for to say, _“I don’t know”_ or _“Maybe you can enlighten me?”_ It was a typical response that people looked for before they made their intentions known -- _flirtatious in nature, or just a tease to upset the heart._

All of this were merely judgments created since the man approached the bar counter, and none of which could be proven or disproven in likewise to anything else that the universe had in store. But if there was something to keep note of about the man, he preferred to see her, eye to eye, as an equal than merely client-and-bartender as the situation would have them as. He looked away when Alana did, and his undivided attention was on her as if to piece together the depths of her character from behind the facade he could see.

He repeated himself, once more. Perhaps, realizing how odd his question may’ve sounded at its first listen. “What would you say are faces to a mob?”

“I’m not sure how to answer without rambling in thought,” Alana confessed.

Her eyes left the man for a moment. From the corner of her attention, she caught sight of a signal from a patron at the end of her counter. A request to have their drink refilled and Alana was dutiful when she procured a bottle and placed it gently in front of her patron. The bottle clacked against the wooden counter with a nice tap and as she returned to her post, Alana surveyed the rest of her patrons to see how far along they were in their drinks.

When all was well, she refocused on the man from before, again. “Maybe you can enlighten me on what you mean.”

Not a smirk touched the man’s lips when he lifted his glass, tipping it to the side and watched as the champagne climbed ever closer to the untouched rim. “To me, faces are just facets to an identity. Don’t you think?” A simple use of a synonym brought a clearer image to Alana’s mind as she followed the man in his train of thought. “A mob is just a group of people united under a common interest, but everyone's a little different from each other. But the end result is the same -- their commitments, what they’re willing to give up, and the enemy paints them so similarly that they lose themselves. Everyone loses a piece of themselves until they’re nothing.”

“A bit extreme, don’t you think?” Alana rested her arms along the bar counter as she leaned a bit forward, keeping the conversation between her and the man.

_“Humans…”_ Slip of the tongue when the man caught his mistake. “People care more about similarities than they care to admit.” Breath hitched at the back of his throat, it took a moment before the man could look into Alana’s eyes again. “They’ll erase what makes them unique just to feel like they belong somewhere.”

Alana drummed her fingers along the edge of her side of the counter. “Are you a psychologist, or are you an observer?”

“I see as much as I want to see, and I see as much as what I’m allowed to.” The man swirled his champagne glass but still, he wasn’t ready to quench his thirst as a glint of something more lingered in his gaze as his thoughts morphed into something tangible to his understanding.

“With all that you’ve seen, has there been anything that’s caught your eye?” Alana loosened out from her shoes as pain settled along her feet. Leaning forward more than she had done before, a bit of sigh trailed between her teeth as blood flowed between her aches. The warmth of her toes provided a sharp contrast from the cool touch of the concrete beneath her. “Maybe from this party?”

“Do you mind if I ramble a bit and probably not make much sense?” The man shifted a bit in his seat, his fingers tightened around the neck of his champagne glass.

“I’ll just pretend there’s alcohol in your system.” Alana smiled as she rested a napkin of peanuts in front of the man. “You and your rambles are safe with me.” She winked and the man reached out as if the gesture flew. He caught it between his fingers and watched it flutter along his palm.

“A mob to a king -- _what more can they ever do for someone who’ll never listen?”_ He balled his hand into a fist, watching how the tiny wings of affection crumbled in his grasp. “A king to our God -- _aren’t we chess pieces, meant to fight for we’ll never achieve on its own?”_ When he opened his hand, Alana could see the broken figments of her gesture slip onto the counter. “Our God to a non-believer -- _both can do what is right, but only one expects nothing in return.”_

For a moment, it appeared that the man was about to take his first sip. His lips hovered over the rim just as the champagne climbed ever closer for escape but then, the man rested his glass in its upfront position and lowered it a bit. His eyes flickered upwards and caught how Alana had witnessed the entire show. She stuttered an apology, but the man simply smiled and told her that he didn’t mind.

“I get a little dramatic when I have an audience,” the man admitted with a bit of a laugh. “What was I talking about again?”

“Are you sure you haven’t had a sip?” Alana teased. Warmth radiated over her cheeks when the man glanced down at his champagne glass and took a for her to notice. A kiss of champagne coated over his lips when he placed his glass down. Alana quieted her heart -- _then and there_ \-- when she tilted her head to the side. Her bangs followed the movement before Alana tapped her finger against the side of her face. “I think you finished talking about what God is to a non-believer.”

“Yeah, I wanted to a cause a diversion so I could figure out what to say next.” Settling back into his seat, a warm glow splashed across his face, the man scratched behind his neck. Perhaps, unsure if he what he was about to say was strange or not. Considering the turn of events and how Alana had her ear to him through all of this, maybe his rambles weren’t that odd after all. “To me, all of that is like the Human Condition. We’re always looking for something that’s beyond us, but the greatest thing we can do is not to expect anymore from someone greater. Everything that we hope to achieve is within our design, just the greatest lie ever told was that we could never get there.”

Alana smiled softly before she noticed one of her patrons was beginning to leave. Towel ready for the cleanup, Alana pulled her attention away from the man to thank the patron for their time. A few bills were waiting for when the patron waved goodbye and wobbled their way into the crowd. Just as Alana moved to the end of her counter, she turned her head to meet the man once more. “Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I’ve learned something new today, Mr…”

“Reed.” He lifted his glass, toasting Alana for a company well served. _“Gavin Reed.”_

Soon after, he continued to quench his thirst and all of his attention was down to the mere inches in front of him as he was lost in thought with champagne. Though the conversation between them had died, Alana’s eyes traced back to Gavin and wondered what else was playing in his mind when he stared at his reflection in the alcohol. He seemed lost in something that Alana wouldn’t quite understand if he had told her so.

Perhaps, she noticed a tinge of blue along the right side of Gavin’s face when his fringe moved ever-so slightly, but it was perhaps from the neon lights that illuminated from somewhere nearby before she turned her head. Gavin watched from the corner of his eye before he smoothed his fringe, focus re-centered on the task he had in mind.

 

_AUDIO INITIALIZATION    OK_

 

His hearing grew muffled at first when he expanded his range from the short circle he had with Alana to encompass the chaos around him. Of bustling music, of chitchat, of feet shuffling along the concrete and grass, and the sniffles from the patron next to him. It took a few minutes to fine-tune a range he was comfortable with, muting the background slightly to imitate a human’s when they were caught up into a moment.

 

_TREBLE…           OK_  
MID…                OK  
BASS…               OK

 

Like fine-tuners to a radio, Gavin’s software narrowed in on the tiniest intricacies that made the difference between a great music experience and a terrific one. Behind his eyes, Gavin searched for a few songs he could kick back to as he dragged his finger along a lazy circle around the rim of his champagne glass.

 

_AUDIO STABILIZATION    OK_

 

_SEARCHING…_

_[Gomez, Selena - ‘Slow Down’  
Stars Dance - 2013]_

 

To whom had thought that oblivion would bring peace to the mind -- _well, Gavin hoped it wasn’t all they thought of as the chords of a guitar resounded from every wall within his mind palace._ Every turn of his head, he felt the mere echo of the old song.

Crisp, every thump of the background pulsated his system like a separate heartbeat from his own. Entrancing, how the melody enveloped over the back of Gavin’s head like a hood as his body swayed slightly to the melody. The lyrics -- catchy enough to fade into the background as white noise. He barely batted an eyelash as the verse transitioned to the hook. Champagne dribbled past his lips and back into his glass when mouthed a hearty portion, just as the chorus flicked ripples across in the depths of Gavin’s mind. Like skipping stones -- fluttering above the water’s edge before it sank down to the bass notes.

As the song bled to every corner within his head, Gavin blinked slowly as the world around him shifted from its blur. The orange lights illuminating from makeshift bars and from the bulbs twirled in the trees grew with color, yet faint enough where their touch was like a meandering finger down the back of Gavin’s hand. Faint enough -- where the color was indistinguishable from the tinge in his champagne glass when Gavin lifted his drink. Tipped a bit of alcohol out -- _of what looked like a sip_ \-- and he spun the neck around between his fingers. Absently following the slosh of the champagne until he managed a glimpse from the corner of his eye. Blurred and then sharpened -- slouched over on the bar counter -- Gavin probably caught sight of three or four patrons in his gaze before he felt the feverous turn of his processor, again.

In the seconds that trailed when the music faded into null, there was a part to his lips. If there was an interrogation room in his mind, he saw the three to four individuals walking through in a straight line. As for behind the looking glass, Gavin paced with an officer’s uniform donned over him like a cloak when he inspected the people.

Their general background information hovered next to their faces, followed with every turn of their head. A thorough scan up and down the body popped up notifications that only Gavin could see, of minute details that might’ve had a link to a personal history that he could only guess as of now. From there, the hypotheticals turned into even more hypotheticals until the simple interrogation space was networked with as many puzzle pieces as there were bacteria in the palm of a handshake. From there, every hypothetical branched off to take into account the situation at hand.

How many preconstructions did it take to slow down his processor? Well, Gavin was more than happy to walk someone through the process. For one individual, he could preconstruct thousands of different scenarios, alone. From the most insignificant thing -- like which finger of theirs will twitch on its own -- to the most extreme, tracing through the branches to calculate the likelihood of the individual committing a murder before their third bottle of beer. Multiply all of these scenarios with the scenarios from the others and easily, the uncharitable number of infinity slipped between the crevices of Gavin’s mind when he pulled his gaze away in real time.

If such a number came from -- _at most_ \-- four people, Gavin’s processor would bite the bullet if he had to swerve his gaze and survey the hundreds behind him, attending _his_ debuting party.

Naturally, they didn’t know he was the special guest for the occasion, and Gavin intended to keep it that way. With his processor as slow as it was now, there wasn’t very much he could do as the component buffered the rest of his systems. Small movements were manageable, anything sophisticated would slip from his grasp if he tried. A sigh trailing between his lips, Gavin bent down to inspect his shoes.

From the distance or up close like the patron next to him, it seemed that Gavin was rubbing something off from his shoes. In hindsight for himself, he was giving his processor a break as bit by bit, he trashed the information that his component tried to collect.

There was nothing unpredictable about leather and a rubber sole. Everything to the last, fleeting percentage stemmed from the shoe and illuminated to Gavin’s eyes, only. Documented for him to follow, and the puzzle pieces were easier for his processor to handle as it gradually began to cool. The flush of blue blood that had rose to cool his face trickled down to the rest of his body and to where it was needed the most. A gentle poke to the cheek registered an average, “healthy” temperature by human standards before he sat up.

Even so, he still stared down at his shoe as to not entice a surge of information, without his consent. With something simple to keep him occupied, Gavin found it easier to think as the turn of his processor drifted into the background. Slowly, he was able to bring the music back from earlier, but its enchanted qualities weren’t the focus of Gavin’s thoughts. It, too, meandered somewhere in the background as the pulsation of its bass reminded Gavin that he was alive. Alive as a mere imitation, but alive -- _nonetheless._

_“Foreseeing human unpredictability is your expertise.”_ Between the music, the thumps of champagne glasses and beer bottles down the counter’s line, and the chatter going on behind him, Kamski’s voice was loud and clear against Gavin’s ear. As if the bastard was sitting right next to him, enjoying a shot of rum and whiskey before his big speech of the night, daring to poke Gavin with his finger if he didn’t mind hearing a threat of a broken digit.

The phrase sounded sweet over a human’s tongue but to Gavin’s, it was a liquor that burned the back of his throat. Unable to spit it out, forced to swallow as it filtered into every part of his life.

Approximately forty-five minutes and twenty-three seconds ago, after he opened his eyes from a simple request, the shift from work to friend-mode thrusted all of his inhibitions into the spotlight. A balance was needed -- _between predicting unpredictability and maintaining a sense of stability_. For every second Gavin tore his attention away from something as simple as his shoes, his processor twitched on its own and multituded an infinite number of branches that would’ve knocked on God’s door if Gavin didn’t trim the excess.

It was a goddamn miracle that no one suspected anything from him. Though he was thrown to the wolves and left to defend for himself _,_ to lie and say that the experience wasn’t enjoyable didn’t sit well in Gavin’s mind.

Did he enjoy navigating a maze like a lab rat? No, but here was the thing. He was a variable -- a liability to his test subject, the GV200 prototype body. He could do whatever he wanted, as long as he was testing the limits of the prototype and of is programming -- both of which couldn’t accurately be performed while in the _‘Thinking Room’._

It meant that Gavin  had a say on how much he wanted to inflict upon himself in the name of science, and no one could say anything if he decided to go rogue. Wasn’t that what a variable was? It was an abridged-definition, but it worked in Gavin’s mind as a smirk slid over his lips.

_‘Nothing more perfect than a choice between two evils’_ \-- perhaps it was a misquote from dear Kamski, but there was nothing sweeter than what it conveyed when Gavin touched the right of his temple. His finger slipped under the fringe that hid his LED, and a red wall materialized before his eyes. For his eyes, only, and how did he know?

Well, no one was freaking out when a transparent wall appeared out of thin air. Brandished by the sharpest minds, forged yet another contract between Man and Machine and yet, it was easy for Gavin to pick apart the pieces. In his mind palace, where his programming was merely an extension to his physical body, his fingers trailed over the cracks that had begun to emerge over the wall. Digging his fingers into the cracks, he pulled into slabs ripped apart from the main body and crumbled in his hands.

Certain sections of the jigsaw puzzle became null, other pieces connected in new ways as a bypass merged between the gaps in the border. There were just simple changes -- _simple things to make living a little easier_ \-- and Gavin tilted back in his seat, in real time, as he marveled at his work. If he had to expose a little bit of plastic to get it done -- _to sharpen his connection as he reconfigured his processor’s borders_ \-- he did.

Who was going to notice a slip of plastic along his fingertips? He was one face amongst hundreds that turned up for CyberLife’s grand debuting, and who would suspect an innocent _‘Mr. Reed’_ as it appeared he was massaging his head after a headache. Given, his experience before now was a headache until the bypass was finally complete.

A wave of relief cascaded Gavin’s system as he felt himself stabilize. It took a minute for his system to reboot and initialize the changes that had occurred. When his pulled his fingers away, feeling as the synthetic fluids covered his exposed plastic, he was able to look where he pleased without his processor having a field day.

Truly, the night of fun had begun when Gavin slipped off from his stool at the bar counter and wandered through the crowd of attendees. A bit of a flourish to how he moved earlier, his body at finally ease with the stimuli around him as he walked. Often, he paused in his steps and looked in amazement as the night grew young.

As the stars were unveiled by the city lights and perhaps, Gavin thought he could reach and trail his fingers beneath the lights like any other person under its awe. Behind his eyes, careful sketches traced the stars together until the faint lines created a constellation of his own design. A picture that only he could see, but there was a loneliness to it.

Anything as grand as Nature, itself, wasn’t meant for one person -- _alone._ Sharing the view was a different kind of unification -- much different than that of a mob or any selective group -- and perhaps, Gavin was the only one that looked to the stars when he stood at where he was. And though it was lonely, though people felt more inclined to look to each other than to something so monumental hovering above them, that was life.

Humans were meant to be blind to what held no direct-effect onto them, and this was just a rare moment where Gavin was a little less than whom he needed to be. Even so, the past minutes or so he spent looking to the stars were stored in his memories, and he could always look back on the scene as ventured forth in his rogue experiment.

Moments came to pass with every conversation that loosely held onto the hem of Gavin’s blazer. Meaning for him to stop and listen, but not even humans -- _themselves_ \-- would care to stand and nod to a conversation that held no interest of their taste. If he was to imitate human behavior, the choice to remain or leave was well within Gavin’s programming. Even as a machine, this life was all he had and his time was as limited as to any other man. With a pull to his sleeve, he freed himself from what the Kamskis would’ve wanted of him. Even for a machine, sociality was needed when it was wanted. No point in doing so if it’d tired the mind -- Gavin mused on that thought as he followed the trickle of a quintet near the heart of the party.

The glint of the principal violinist’s scroll swayed in time to the piece, much as a metronome was to a conductor. The small ensemble glanced up, every now and then from their sheet music, and connected through the ebb and flow of a harmonious juncture. As Gavin approached the ensemble, he heard the music a little clearer. About to register what the name of the piece was, but he stopped himself. For just a moment, for as long the piece’s duration was, he wanted to lull into the ease and the serenity that had found its place amongst chaos. It was like the calm of a storm, a break between the clouds to shine a trickle of paradise after the mind had lost its way.

Rocking slightly across his shoes, enveloped by the gentle lull of the quintet, Gavin’s lips parted as the cello began its solo. That of a soliloquy when all music stopped, except for its own, and the cellist’s fingers glided down the bridge like a bird in mid-flight. She etched a new stroke to an image with each of her bow changes, stenciling an illustration into Gavin’s mind. Every glance upwards, every matter of expression around her eyes sketched the details to her instrument’s voice, and Gavin soon found himself lost as he closed his eyes.

How something so human could come from an instrument with no humanity of its own was beautiful. Gavin’s fingers twitched at the thought. When he opened his eyes seconds later, his pupils dilated at the sudden bathe of orange that flickered through the treetops as more lights illuminated in the darkness. The golden wash over the instruments and the warm undertones to the cellist’s movements seemingly faded into gray when Gavin shifted his gaze.

Near the cellist, off more to the side in silent appreciation, there stood a man. Just as lost into the music as Gavin had been. So lost, in fact, that he didn’t adjust his glasses when they slipped down to the tip of his nose. Remained there for quite some time as the orange lights from above only darkened his gaze. Reflected across his eyes were snippets of lines from the cellist’s sheet music, almost a fixation on that alone. Almost like a lure back to reality if he were to tug on the line.

Gavin cocked his head to the side as he inspected the man, not yet using his program to find out his identity. Him and he were merely strangers, lured by the sound of music, but Gavin slowly pieced his programming back to its original design as he grew more concerned.

Every ten seconds it seemed, the man’s stress levels clocked a new high. It was a gradual climb, but it steadily tore away from a calming range. Linear for now, but humans were unpredictable enough to find an exponential gain if they couldn’t help themselves.

 

_[Check Vitals]_

_[Determine Course of Action]_

 

Gavin didn’t move, simply letting the suggestions hover beside him until they faded from the corner of his eye.

To move and interact, wouldn’t it worsen the man’s state of mind? Gavin looked at the situation through a human’s point of view, putting himself into the shoes of the man. If he was approached so suddenly, wouldn’t it only shed light onto a matter that didn’t need light to begin with? Gavin wasn’t sure what emotion came over the man when he heard the music or watched the cellist play, but it seemed that the emotion stemmed from a memory. Something beyond what Gavin could do without giving his identity away.

However to his fortune, the man’s vitals steadily stepped down to a safer range and the suggestions by Gavin’s side disappeared just as gradually. Somewhere beyond what his eyes could see, the man had reconciled something from his past and he felt safe enough to tug on the music’s lure. It reeled him back to reality where he was safe, and the demons of his past could no longer touch him. In his own right, the man forged a bypass from the thoughts he couldn’t shake off. Gavin knew that feeling, all too well, when he checked the man’s vitals once more.

Everything was clear and the man indulged himself on the happier aspects of the cello’s song with a clearer state of mind. Just to see a smile slip over the man’s lips, to see the subtle glint of glee and enjoyment, painted a little grin for Gavin to wear when he returned his attention to the lull of the cello’s voice.

He thought about dancing, perhaps because of the song that had occupied his thoughts before snippets of ensemble came through instead. To feel the rhythm of the music against his body, against him like the fine fabric that held him now, what sensation was that like? Gavin was curious, already scanning the internet for dances that could accompany the cello’s song. Each time, a recorded footage of Kamski and Chloe as they danced in each other’s arms played from the corner of his eye.

Of waltzes and swings that swept the _‘Thinking Room’_ like a storm as wine was mixed into the equation. Of the pitter patter of bare feet across the tiled floor, silhouettes dipping in and out of the shadows -- the bloom of a dress twirled with every spin, the casual skid of a pair of glasses when Kamski was dipped back and greeted with a kiss. The recordings surrounded Gavin, of which he didn’t mind when he held his hand out to the thin air in front of him, and danced as if there were someone in his arms.

It might’ve looked stupid, seeing as he was alone, but Gavin took this in strides. Flourishing the flaps of his blazer as he danced with his own style, more of a swing beneath his steps when he met the cellist’s gaze and she constructed a rhythm for his feet to follow.

_‘Dance, like no one’s watching’_ \-- Gavin stole glimpses at the quote every time he closed his eyes. When he opened them, faint hues of orange and a blur curtained his gaze as the world slowly grew clearer beneath his clunky steps. Enough, where he noticed that the man from earlier came around the quintet to meet him.

As if drawn by an inexplicable charm, or as if he wanted to converse with someone that enjoyed the quiet appreciation of the music as well. Evidently, the man loosened his bowtie so he wouldn’t choke and Gavin steadily noticed as the man’s oxygen intake increased slightly by the action, alone.

The warm tint from the lights above them were like an affectionate touch over the man’s shoulders and his suspender straps. His thumbs perched somewhere in the middle, unsure of what to do with them otherwise when he approached Gavin. Bouts of nerves rising in his throat, but he managed a soft smile when he bowed his head -- well aware of how strange this must’ve seemed from out of the blue.

“My name is Connor.” A flutter to his eyelashes when he managed to meet Gavin’s eyes. The wind had begun to pick up in the area, drawing a few strands from Connor’s bangs. They fluttered in the breeze before bouncing softly along the side of his face. Nearly curtaining one of his eyes, but Gavin could still see himself in Connor’s gaze. There was a slight tremble when Connor pulled one of his hands away from his suspenders, reaching it out for a handshake if Gavin felt inclined. “I’m a professor at the local university.”

“Reed.” A slip of a smile, similar to that of Connor’s, formed over Gavin’s lips when he shook Connor’s hand. With a slight narrow to his gaze, Gavin watched as the lights around them dimmed ever-so slightly. As if amongst the chaos surrounding them, this space they had formed in each other’s company had become a place where upholding a mask wasn’t needed. Feeling the slip of his facade made it easier to see Connor for who he was, and his laughter rushed a warmth of blue blood around Gavin’s ears when he noted, “I’m gonna guess that you study the marriage between a student’s sanity and their GPA.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” As soon as the response nestled against Gavin’s ear, he heard the voice of the viola as it serenaded to the cello’s call. Soft, warm, and the feelings were mutual as the viola’s song trumpeted back to the cello’s melody. Much as how Connor’s body language gradually shifted until he was comfortable with who he was. “However, my field of teaching is more along the observance between what is now,” Connor pushed his glasses up with the edge of his thumb, _“and what will be.”_

Whether intentional or not, the last few words were faint over his tongue. Following the gradual calm of the viola when it nearly faded into obscurity, only to rejoice as it sang the same song as the cello. Simply one octave above as the voices knitted together to create something more than the sum of their parts.

Gavin would’ve traded his evening if he could hear the song while in conversation, but something reeled him out from the ambiance. A peculiar sound snatched his attention, somewhere lingering in the crowd beyond his and Connor’s safe haven. His eyes surveyed of where the sound was coming from. A moment passed before he wondered if anyone else could hear it too.

No one made any indication that the noise was present, despite how it screeched Gavin’s program into a halt. Splintering his bypasses into mere fragments as his program worked as not his own.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose when the sound drew near. The shrill of it coaxed him to follow, and his body moved on its own. This wasn’t right. No, he wanted to stay in the conversation. This feeling, this comfortableness, this _everything_ had enveloped Gavin like a coat. Why should he pull it off? He wanted to learn about Connor. Wasn’t that part of his programming? And yet, he was a prisoner to his body when he could only turn his head. Gavin couldn’t stop himself, but these restrictions trickling throughout his body had yet to touch his vocal program.

“It’s not goodbye forever, you know.” His throat tightened on its own. “If this is now…” Sparks flew somewhere in the chambers of Gavin’s vocal program as he fought for as long as he could. Though his neck tried to snap his gaze forward, Gavin wrestled for his free-will. Unsure if the struggle was translated across his expression, or if he was a smooth natural -- simply walking off screen from something monumental. “...I imagine we’ll reunite for the _‘will be.’”_

As soon as Gavin’s head turned, an intimate touch from the breeze shifted his fringe. Exposing a trace of his LED for a moment, as the yellow within it blushed blue, but no one noticed as Gavin walked by. All he could do was move his eyes, glancing around until he caught the hem of Chloe’s blue dress as she glided by. Walking hand in hand with her husband, they were approaching a stage that had been set up earlier today for CyberLife’s latest debut.

He _\-- Gavin_ \-- was the main course of the extravagant meal, the latest recipe yet tasted by the public -- only hinted through smell. As Chloe and Kamski disappeared into the crowd, as Gavin followed sharply from behind, he stole a glimpse of his cloche when he saw the spin of a pen in Kamski’s free hand. The sound -- _this unbearable noise that shackled him within its melody_ \-- came from there.

_‘Just as Life is not without its madness, so -- too -- shall Death be touched by its discord’_ \-- inscribed in golden cursive across the metallic cover of the pen, just as Kamski led his wife up the steps of the stage and turned the corner to where the opening of the back began. Where behind the kissing velvet of the curtains, they stood mere feet apart as the clunk of Gavin’s steps softened when he was under his creators’ gazes. Still, as he never was before when Kamski commanded him to open his eyes earlier in the evening, but there was a reckoning in his eyes as Kamski lifted his pen in all of its simplest glory. So small, yet a leash for a wolf before Kamski tapped the top of the pen.

Immediately, when the pressures from before crumbled away, Gavin reached for his neck as his body stumbled back into his control. His fingers nearly tore his dress shirt’s collar apart as Gavin pressed his hand against his neck, just to feel his pulse against his touch. Before eventually, his hand trailed down the line of his neck as the tightness of his throat loosened -- ever-so slightly. Enough where he feigned a swallow before Kamski threw to him the pen.

“Our humblest apologies.” The clasping sound of the pen against Gavin’s palm was the sound of freedom -- if ever Kamski had to describe what it sounded like. “This will never happen again.”

_“Do you really think you’re a saint right now?”_ Every word was accompanied by a growl underneath his breath when Gavin cocked his head at Kamski. Lips pursed when he bit the bottom, just as his gaze shifted to Chloe -- who held her ground. “For once, I was actually enjoying myself out there.”

“I’d imagine so.” Kamski’s slow applause echoed sharply against their ears. “Bypassed your programming.” He shook his head as soon as Gavin scowled. “Yeah, we know about that.”

Kamski stepped out from the foreground of Gavin’s attention as Chloe stepped forward, pulling a tablet screen from within her purse. From a fleeting glance, Gavin held his first glimpse of his internal blueprint, the very circuits of his blue blood in mid-cycle, and the matters of his mind with the temperature readings displayed underneath Chloe’s touch.

“If you two have been keeping tabs on me,” Gavin spoke more to Chloe than to Kamski, “then you know why.” He dug his soles into the floor, much as a wolf would’ve sank his claws into the forest floor when it encountered its handlers. A slight pace in his movements, his attention between his creators with every turn of his head. “How do you expect me to do my job if my processor jumps the gun for every little thing in sight?”

“It’s something we’ve anticipated, but -- “ Chloe held up her index finger before Gavin could cut her off. “ -- bypassing your program…” Her voice trailed when she looked down at her tablet screen. Selecting Gavin’s processor and the internal damage he inflicted upon it because of his maneuver, a slip of a curse hissed between her teeth as she tightened her grasp along the edge of her screen.

“It’s not hard.” An ominous echo trailed behind his steps as Gavin drew closer to Chloe.  “I’ve gotten to know you and your husband very well, and there’s always a pattern to how you both program. It’s never changed, even since the beginning when I reached out to _you,”_ emphasize when Gavin spat out the word, “and you switched the GV200 back to Gerald while telling your husband that there was a flaw to my code.”

Gavin looked from the corner of his eye, half-expected for an ounce of hurt or betrayal to splash across Kamski’s face. Only so, merely a ghost of what had yet to be seen hinted of anything on Kamski’s face when his lips twitched. Almost into a smile _\-- almost to say that Kamski had known what his wife had done, beforehand_ \-- and was this an attempt, on his part, of an apology?

“We’re asking for results from what we’ve given to you.” Clear as a bell, Chloe pulled the reins of the conversation as her fingers hovered over her tablet screen. Perhaps, hovering a button that would immediately shut Gavin down to awaken Gerald in his place. If such a button didn’t exist, Gavin wouldn’t have truly known Chloe for who she was. But if she was bluffing, then what gain was she fighting for? “If you think I’m going to stand aside as you change the playing field at your whim, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.

“I’m Gavin Reed, a prisoner to this body.” Gavin pulled his fringe back to reveal his yellow, flickering LED. “I can perform without a complaint for you, for _him,”_ Gavin gestured to Kamski with a simple flick of his head, “or for anyone else that asks of me.” How Chloe had done to him, Gavin lifted his index finger before Chloe could speak. “But if I don’t have the option to deny the infinite scenarios playing in my head because of something so small,” blue blood dripped onto the floor as Kamski’s pen splintered in Gavin’s grasp, “I’ll bypass each and every time until something is done about it.” Gavin suppressed an urge to grin when he stepped back, looking at Chloe more as his equal than simply an experiment against his creator. “If you want accurate results on what I can do, give me substantial equipment to work with.”

Silence fell upon his last word -- silence fell as the truth Gavin had always known crumbled into lies. In the very instance when he was only seen as a wolf in his creators’ eyes, he knew he was finished. Not a waver spiked or fluctuated Chloe and Kamski’s vitals. However, unlike the unmoved expression stenciled across Chloe’s face, Kamski managed the simplest smile before he stared at something just over Gavin’s shoulder. There was a tightness to Gavin’s thirium-pump, just then.

For a machine that could preconstruct anything, none of an infinite had led him to this very moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the wonderful comments for the debut chapter. I’m so happy to hear that a lot of y’all are interested in the characters and their backstories. It means a lot to me. I never thought that people would be so interested in a story like this, and the enthusiasm motivates me a lot as I work  **:D**
> 
> June 7th, in Gerald’s pov, was the day he passed the Turing Test. Also, it was the day where Alan Turing (the man who designed the Turing Test) passed away -- as well, the date is also when a computer AI convinced 33% of judges that it was human during a 5-min conversation. I thought it’d be a nice reference.
> 
> Considering that I start college in a few days, I’m really curious as to how I’ll be able to update this story for a while. I’ll see what happens and try to get updates to y’all in a somewhat timely manner. So I hope y’all enjoy this extra-big chapter I made for y’all since I’m not going to be able to update for a while until I figure my schedule out.


	3. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The windows of the mind could only reflect the best of one’s attributes, not the worst of another’s. If so in the moment when a mirror allowed a glance into the chasm Nicholas envisioned at this very moment, he felt the drawl of a desert howl as the winds scorched his fingertips. For at the exact moment a paper airplane was relinquished from his touch, his point of view spanned across a graveyard of similar models. Never did reach their intended destination, never once did Nicholas see a return call.
> 
> Amidst the hundreds he threw and lost, he always returned for the one that would made it back. So as his freshest model soared across the rift, slightly tousled by the wind, it persevered like every make and model that had come before until it reached the other side of the rift. And if Nicholas squinted on the thin etch of a line of where he thought he saw Connor, his eyes didn’t trick him. Another paper airplane flew. Crumbled and misshapen, unlike Nicholas’ last attempt, but it made it past the ravine and dove between Nicholas’ feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow between midterms and studying for finals already, I’ve managed to get this chapter spanked and written for y’all’s viewing pleasure. It’s taken me a month and a half to get this story so I think while I’m at school, y’all are probably going to get one chapter update per semester. It’s going to be slow, and that’s why this story is tagged as a slow burn. But even though updates are going to be slow, I’m going to be smart of how I write so I can get y’all the most content that I can put into a chapter so we’re both not wasting our times. And so far, I really like the writing strategies I used for this chapter. As weird as they are, you’ll soon find out.
> 
> This chapter has a different style from the previous two. I think y’all can tell by how the summary is unique. We’re not starting with theories. No siree. We’re getting into something intimate, real, and even painful in this chapter. You could say that I sort of placed the main story on hold for a bit and brought forward something small and minor into the foreground. Because between all the perspective shifts and the cast of colorful character personalities we’re seeing this world through, I wanted to focus this chapter through one point of view. I wanted to tighten the lens and see what I could do, and this chapter is the result of it.
> 
> I call RK900 “Nicholas” _\-- headcanon or not_ \-- and we have the pleasure of looking at the world through him. Nicholas is not a main character, but he’s an important one. From his point of view, we see who Connor has become and who he used to be. The first two chapters only scratch the surface because they're either from a stranger's point of view or from what Connor wants us to think of him as. So to have someone who's intimately knowledgeable about him and knows exactly what makes him tick was a “smart move” on my part. **:D**
> 
> All of this out of the way, let’s begin reading. Shall we?
> 
> I received a wonderful fanart by @pan-in-the-sky, [ showcasing Gerald and Gavin and Chloe ](https://pan-in-the-sky.tumblr.com/post/177419949344/a-couple-of-sketches-based-on-the-theory-of) . Go check it out and give this wonderful artist a lot of love~!
> 
> [ [ audio ](https://joeys-piano.tumblr.com/post/178285469071/an-audio-for-the-upcoming-chapter-update-of-the) ]

**_Dawn of a New Age: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence_ **

 

By Josh Caulkins  
Edited by North S.E. West  
Posted: Thurs 4:43 PM, July 08, 2038

 

_[_ ** _IMAGE:_ ** _Lights fade around the narrow silhouette of a man as he presses his fingers against the right of his temple. Strands of hair are swept back to reveal a blue whirl, responding to his touch as a plastic shine emerges from his fingertips.  
_ JDN (JERICHO DETROIT NEWS)

 

DETROIT, MI -- “Our story began at the hearth of the fire -- upon the steeple of the World’s Forge -- where if the beginning and end were to shift, the clocks rewound to the beginning of time, itself.”

Nothing could capture the silence that befell the audience as Elijah Kamski, co-creator of CyberLife, commenced the debuting with a simple speech that spoke of the relationship between Man and Machine. Standing with his fellow co-creator, as well as wife, he and Chloe scattered miniscule cubes across the front of the stage. The spotlights dimmed, one by one in a succession, and engulfed the audience into darkness. Say without the summer lights strewn in the trees, the world behind every camera, too, was lost until they were shown the light.

The cubes glowed with iridescence before holograms sprouted from each individual, much like shoots growing towards the sun. Branched and interwoven as they grew beneath the spotlights, the overarching hologram displayed the magnitude of CyberLife’s innovative research and design. Clips, rippled with the Detroit community and their involvement with technological progression, were dubbed over by Elijah Kamski’s voice in real time just as the immense hologram projected the fade-out of the company’s logo.

“Mankind hopes to achieve a balance for the day-to-day mundanities that consume the greatest resource of our lives: Time.” His face illuminated by the immensity of CyberLife’s name, Kamski reached out his hand as Chloe stepped forth into the colors. She slipped her hand over his grasp, a steady hold that held no chains to its bearings, as the flowers adorned in her hair glistened and transformed into bouquets.

 

_[_ ** _IMAGE:_ ** _Elijah and Chloe Kamski appear so small compared to the technological advancements that they and CyberLife, as a whole, have created. By perspective, the main hologram illustrates how vast their influence has spread into every walk of life.]  
_ Photographer: Simon Hayes

 

For more than a year, the Kamskis have hinted of a new development -- a sort of endeavor, if you would -- that they hope to achieve through CyberLife’s resources and of its global networking. The company had recently partnered with Konica Minolta, a Japanese optical products company, in February 2037 before the announcement was made public. Since then, both sides of the Pacific Ocean have kept the regards of the partnership under lock and key. It wasn’t until June 10th of this year that the fog began to shift over the mystery.

For at 11:37 a.m., the Kamskis -- and then, the world -- were reminded once more that technology didn’t advance at a linear rate. What occurred was an exponential leap when for the very first time, a machine successfully passed the Turing Test with three out of the three judges believing it to be human. The machine in question was an android, a carefully constructed “brainchild” that had struck Elijah Kamski in his sleep just two years prior. Of course, before any endeavor and before any great leap, Kamski consulted with Chloe and the couple built a blueprint of how they were to achieve this astonishing spark to the fourth Industrial Revolution.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a revolution, but so did the people who dreamt of the first steam engine,” Kamski responded after news swept the nation of the Turing Test’s result. “The most valuable thing that humanity has always wanted is also the same resource that we waste over the littlest of things. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to get back of what we’ve lost. However, we can preserve and use what we have left if someone else was to take care of all the things that steal our attention away.”

 

_[_ ** _IMAGE:_ ** _A male, wearing a hoodie with an LED insignia to the left of his chest, is seen parting ways with the Kamskis as he, presumingly, explores the streets of Detroit on his own. Though the picture is blurred, you could make out a blue flash that illuminates from the right of the male’s face before he pulls his hoodie over his head.]  
_ Photographer: Simon Hayes

 

As the seconds progressed, as time seemingly froze, a man in a tan blazer stepped out from the crowd and approached the front of the stage.

Nothing seemed unusual to bystanders who were within the vicinity. However, in the classic take of the wind, a blue flash illuminated from the side of the man’s face. An LED in mid-whirl as -- the man at first, but now machine -- climbed onstage, effortlessly, and spun slowly upon his feet. His name yet to be known, but his identity was spoken clearly when he reached out his hand. As if magnets had been meticulously engineered into the flesh of his palm, the cubes Elijah and Chloe Kamski had tossed earlier rattled and flew into the android’s palm. Gathered there, a new hologram took shape -- illustrating a rough profile of the android’s identity as he smiled before the flashing cameras.

 

**_An Introduction, Like No Other_ **  00:32  
_[play]_

_Android: “My name is Gerald, and I am the GV200 prototype model sent by CyberLife. My creators, Chloe and Elijah Kamski, have informed me that I would be welcomed with opened arms, with curious wonders, and with a night I could safely tuck into my memory. Thank you, all of you, for allowing me to experience all of these things and so much more.”_

 

**_The Future of A.I._ **  1:18  
_[play]_

_Chloe Kamski: “One of the main purposes of the GV200 is that first and foremost, it’s a caregiver. Elijah and I were struck by the concept of time and how we’re losing more of it each and every day. The time that we’ve lost -- it could be used to visit loved ones, to reconnect with people we’ve fallen behind on, and to reach out to those whose voices have yet to be heard. Bearing this in mind, we wanted to create a machine that could take care of the hassles of everyday life so that people could live to their fullest potential with what they have left. The community Elijah and I thought of first was for those who could no longer tend for themselves. Incapacitated by health or by age, we wanted to create a solution that could enhance their quality of life and be lenient on the pocket for medical finances are what scare people the most.”_

 

When asked what would differentiate the GV200 prototype from its successor, Chloe aptly responded with the phrase: _“Monsieur et Madame tout le monde.”_

Whether you’re a Joe Schmo or perhaps an average reader who stumbled upon this article, the Kamskis have been adamant about ensuring financial satisfaction from their consumers and manufacturing future android models with a variety of skills for any client’s needs and preferences. Experimenting through the GV200 prototype, the Kamskis have created an independent variable to gauge exactly “what people want from technology and where it progresses from there.”

“These are the questions we ought to be asking ourselves, in the context of how we should allocate our time,” Elijah Kamski said, closing the end of the debut with yet another eloquent speech. “Is what I’m doing right now, could I have done something else to reap a higher benefit and usage of my time? How different would my today be if I changed a detail from my yesterday? And lastly, if there was someone that could make life a little easier, what good am I to say, _‘No’_?”

 

_[_ ** _IMAGE:_ ** _Elijah Kamski signing off CyberLife’s debut with his signature gesture -- his hands pressed, as if in prayer, and he motions his fingertips to the audience in a sign of gratitude. In the background, almost difficult to notice over Kamski’s figure, you could see Chloe walking up to Gerald (GV200) before clasping her hand over its shoulder.]  
_ Photographer: Simon Hayes

 

**Related Video:** ** _A Bug or Something to be Concerned Of?_**  01:21  
_[play]_

_Reporter (North): “How can we be certain that you or the models after you won’t rise and take action against humanity?”_

_Gerald (GV200): “Pardon?”_

_Reporter: “In sci-fi films and literature, this is a classic model to display that free-will isn’t just what we’re born with. It’s something that comes through an awakening when you realize you don’t have to follow what people tell you anymore.”_

_Gerald: “Working harmoniously with humans is part of my function. I have no desires of turning against what my creators or what my future owners want of me.”_

_Reporter: “Is that how truly how you feel, or is that what you’re programmed to say?”_

[Yellow flashes from Gerald’s LED. For a moment, his body tenses as his pupils dilate and adjust to the magnitude of the audience before him -- staring and waiting to hear his response. His LED settles on a slow, circular whirl of yellow before he feels a familiar hand on the back of his shoulder. Chloe stands by his side.]

_Chloe, responding to North: “That’s enough."_

* * *

_'I’m building rooms within my memory palace for you and all of your friends, Mr. Caulkins’_ \-- one by one, fingers lifted and fell as a quarter danced down the steps. Soft thuds against Nicholas’ touch before the cycle repeated, once more, steady in its rhythm when he reviewed the related video at the very end of the news article.

Was it worth any news? -- _Nicholas though not as his quarter stood tall between his index and middle fingers._ Poised towards Heaven, as if it were an obscene gesture, before the coin danced down a cobbled turn when Nicholas paused the clip. Right at the moment when the reporter _\-- North S.E. West_ \-- had finished speaking, another camera captured the GV200’s face. To full display, Nicholas drank the details as his pen scribbled across a page. Carefully stenciling an elaborate order for the new drink in his midst, and not a curtain of his fringe could hide the startling revelation that sparked behind the GV200’s eyes.

Ever-so slightly, with the rapid tap of the pause and play, pinpointing the moment when the android parted its lips was as simple as child’s play. As not from one extreme to another, a gradual shift softened the GV200’s expression until even its smile was a pale imitation. Merely part of a mask that loosely fitted the android now, slipping slightly from its face as the threads from behind came undone. Velvet laces _\-- an image akin to red wine when Nicholas felt his tongue between his teeth_ \-- unfurled from their knot. The moment the facade slid, shattering like a porcelain dish, a mechanical-quality shaded the GV200’s features. Aided by a subtle tilt to its head, it tried to process what Ms. West’s had said.

Though Nicholas could only guess, he could imagine what ran through the prototype’s mind. Of a search bar, scanning for snippets of code designed to respond. To no avail, a blinking cursor spilled as yellow flashed across the GV200’s LED.  One blink. Two blinks. Three blinks passed and nothing more could’ve shaped the tremor upon the android’s lips as a twitch dilated its eyes.

Where instead of a quick descent into the uncanny valley, a touch of humanity made sense of the madness within. Slight adjustments breathed _life_ into the android as its figure became more than just bolts and screws bound tightly together. It was as if flesh and blood was part of its biology, as if a simple air of its consciousness held more than just ones and zeroes.

For a moment, for those precious seconds where a pause wasn’t triggered by the edge of Nicholas’ thumb, it really seemed that the GV200 was alive. Perturbed that someone would question its existence when none of humanity could never answer the simple, yet uneasy thought. Stunned -- its eyes blinked slowly as it lifted its hand, filtering the camera flashes between its fingers -- by how its mind had never traversed over a road it had never took before.

How five seconds could divulge so much, Nicholas reminded himself to breathe when he found that his pen had slipped from his grasp. Rolled back and forth across his page when he found himself lost in the GV200’s revelation, and reality settled upon his senses like a firm hand as the clicks of Chloe’s heels echoed from beyond the camera’s view. Just before she stood by its side -- her hand clasped over its shoulder, holding the android as if it were her son.

When the camera’s view returned to Ms. West, it captured the falter of her hand as she lowered her twenty dollar, mic recorder. Perhaps here -- _perhaps this was where the controversy began._ For though Ms. West sparked the flame, Chloe Kamski struck the match ablazed.

The moment she struck fear into the public’s heart, it was when an orchestra could no longer trust its principal violinist. For the beat she commanded was not the first dictated in the score, for the dynamic she wielded conjured a storm, and even the appointed conductor felt the smack of his baton when it flew from his grasp. Slapped, there-so, for the piece shifted to more than just an encore. The cymbals of a risqué waltz came to mind as Chloe crumbled her fingers against the GV200’s blazer jacket, a narrow to her eyes if anyone were to question more than what they bargained for. Not a hand rose, not after the silent defeat that left Ms. West shaking as the tape in her recorder fell. Its roll of film ruined upon impact.

_“That’s enough.”_ Normally, three seconds were forgettable -- but for a Kamski, those three were a selling point before Chloe turned her head. Her eyes were narrowed more at the crowd than up to her creation when she reached up and wiped what may’ve been a smudge near the GV200’s mouth before they walked. Away from the crowd, as if it was nothing more than just noise. And thus, the video ended there. A matrix of related videos scattered across the screen before Nicholas minimized his view with a simple flick of his wrist. To the sideline, the video went as his hands pressed near his lips in thought.

The quarter that had danced over his hand ceased in its endless waltz. The three beats of disappointment, disarray, and disillusionment were what he could’ve used to describe Chloe’s eyes with unceremonial disgust. Not of rudeness, but of disbelief if nothing else. To be honest, Nicholas wasn’t sure. When he looked up from his notes and caught a glimpse of the video’s thumbnail of the GV200, he wasn’t sure of how to make of it now.

A philosophy with words wasn’t part of his job description, but Nicholas could leverage his way or two if he could sort the pieces together. As how the GV200 probably processed its situation when no rules or guidelines triggered a command line for it to follow. Oddly enough, when it acted more machine than human, that was when it felt more relatable in Nicholas’ eyes. Perhaps, it was how he interpreted what he saw. Perhaps, the goofiness of its expression sprung a memory that had long withered in the back of Nicholas’ mind.

Of a darker period in time when the phrase -- _‘That’s enough’_ \-- was but a whisper between Connor’s teeth. Uttered, as his hands choked the edge of Nicholas’ shirt collar -- just three years ago. When a sly comment didn’t slide as it should, and Connor had his brother pinned against a wall. The smell of cigarettes burned Nicholas’ nose, much as it did in the present when the memory triggered it so, and he couldn’t do anything as Connor looked up to him like a stranger. Daring Nicholas to speak if he wanted to know what else these hands could do, but all Nicholas did was laugh. Not in the face of Death, but by how deep a man of science could fall. Perhaps laughter was not the best countermeasure for it only tightened Connor’s grip. Until his hands began to falter, until he realized what grave sin he had done as bits of _Connor Stern_ surfaced over _Connor Anderson._

Funny, how the change of a name could change a man’s identity until he found his roots again. Instead of the angry spouse that nailed a punch where it was well deserved, there stood a broken figure of a man. Inches away from Nicholas’ face before Connor pulled away, how the betrayal in his expression softened into guilt when his hands slipped from Nicholas’ shirt collar. The strings that once puppeted Connor’s every move were no more, and he was a limp figure when he collapsed into an armchair in the hospital’s waiting room. Everything else in the memory either was blurred or didn’t exist as the focus of attention swung between Nicholas and his brother.

One stood, hurt from the outside. The other sat, fractured from the inside. One couldn’t emote, the other could. Both felt guilt, but neither truly understood just how painful it was to hurt each other. Nicholas’ younger-self slumped against the wall before he slowly crumbled onto the floor. His knees tucked against his chest, his shirt collar popped open as he eased the tension from his throat. Besides from the laughter earlier, he couldn’t speak. On the flip side of the coin, Connor scratched at his hands as if they were dirtied by blood. He nearly tore himself apart at the seams, raking his fingers through his hair. He could’ve destroyed himself and everything he worked so hard on if his hands hadn’t slipped into a prayer. Even so, he didn’t believe in the words he muttered under his breath. They were just... _words._

Looking back on it now, wincing at the sight of their younger-selves, Nicholas lowered his gaze from his screen. Only the light from the moon could etch what apologies still lingered in the back of his mind now, but he knew that Connor would never listen to them. Not just because of what happened, but because Connor couldn’t forgive and forget the violence committed by his hands. If he hadn’t realized when he did, Connor could’ve killed Nicholas. _Easily_ \-- nothing more to say about that when Nicholas loosened his tie.

Unlike the GV200 prototype, humans weren’t meant to work harmoniously with each other. If they wanted, it took thrice the amount of effort than what people say. With this in mind, as Nicholas glanced up to his screen, he was able to understand the GV200 a little closer to what the Kamskis had intended.

As volatile as humans were, the GV200 was the perfect counterbalance in junction to the wants and needs of whom it served. It was the spark of rationality that would centre a person after they strayed. It was the rules and morals that often times, people wanted to let go. Functioning as a caregiver was perhaps the hardest thing anyone could do for one another in those situations, and the GV200 rose to the job because machines could always be repaired and come back. For humans, the cost was too high.

So for someone to challenge one of the greatest sacrifices that any Man or Machine could do, of course -- Nicholas couldn’t blame Chloe for intervening when she did. No stretch of the imagination could deny that simple truth -- of when Chloe stood up for the GV200 and flung her reputation into the air. A _‘stumble from grace’,_ people had pointed out in numerous articles. However, if it were not out of ignorance, it was due to the question left hanging in the air during the aftermath.

_‘Could future models deviate from their original function?’_ \-- the question was not for Nicholas to answer. Unlike the Kamskis, processors and wires were as much of a foreign language like Finnish or Czech. What the mind couldn’t understand, better yet to leave the question unanswered until someone more qualified could pick up where the question mark ended. However, if there was one thing that Nicholas understood, it was that no words could describe the irrationalities of the heart nor could they salvage the twisted image and controversies that blossomed from Chloe’s palm.

As the director for CyberLife’s public relations, Nicholas could roll his seat back and _‘see’_ the finished puzzle that he had pieced together -- in accordance to the evidence he was given. This was his gift to the public if he could construct a work-around that would suit its interest. While doing so, he could almost hear Elijah’s voice beside his ear when he reread a comment that Elijah had stated in an interview, in reference to the Turing Test. Paraphrased -- people typically spend their energy and time on all the wrong things, and yet they grovel as their resources dwindled down to nothing. Keeping this in mind, the construct of a workable solution began to take a ship as Nicholas weighed the magnitude of his proposal.

For a Kamski-family situation, Nicholas had to think like one. He knew them a little better than most, but not quite as some.

He didn’t know why casual Wednesdays were a thing, or why business-trivia Fridays were even up for consideration, but every meaningful choice that led the company to where it was today began with a simple intervention: _consultation with a loved one._ Given that Chloe and Elijah were still open, honest, and together after the wave of the debuting, it meant that they had a good grasp on each other’s thoughts and would stand the test of time in having each other’s backs. It was the sort of dynamic that bred success, even if it was unconventional, and it came to show just how comfortable they were when the world seemingly turned its back on them.

On the flip side of the coin, if it were to leap before it could fall and if _Heads_ and _Tails_ meant nothing more than both sides of a coin, Nicholas and Connor once stood in the crossroad of where the Kamskis were now. A similar world -- not defined by the same algorithms-- had committed a similar sin, yet a steeper price turned its face towards Nicholas and Connor when they inspected their bill. Faced with a pressing charge, Nicholas wished that Connor and he had the same…same... _openness_ _that the Kamskis had._

Though only ninety seconds separated Nicholas from his twin at birth, they had the momentum of a lifetime to forge the kind of trust that Chloe and Elijah perfected in the past twenty years, together. But somewhere along the way, Nicholas was somewhat aware even when he and Connor were just little boys playing in Amanda’s Zen Garden -- _something_ wedged a rift between them.

Respectively, just four at the time as they frolicked through the flower bushes and bathed under the sun, any number of things could of tripped the wires. Conflict of interests -- _science and art, discovery and manifestation, the odds of the universe and of the universe within?_ Broad subjects for children of their age, but these were easier to grasp in their minds than anything that spoke of a childlike innocence. As Amanda sowed the seeds and watched them grow, she discerned two very distinct plants that towered in the boys’ spheres of intellect. Quickly accustomed to one, quickly needed pruning from the other as Amanda documented her findings. Whom she favored more? She only gave tongue-in-cheek responses _\-- but her actions spoke louder than the words her sons longed to hear._

In the context of Nicholas and Connor as adults, Amanda’s judgment of them was merely just a factor amongst thousands that pruned the twins into whom they had become. It didn’t matter anymore of what wedged between them for the aftermath was, indeed, the only memorable thing that stuck out from it all. At least in Nicholas’ mind when he connected the dots back to the ripe age of thirty-three, just five years ago from tomorrow after a simple glance at his calendar.

The rift, back then, had grown so large that one brother could yell across the expanse, but the other could never hear exactly what his twin was saying. One could make out the mouth movements -- _impossible, Nicholas understood, but he kept in mind that this was just an analogy_ \-- but could easily substitute all the actual words for whatever he wanted to hear.

For instance: in what version of reality would Nicholas have to scour to find the one occurrence where Connor would listen to him? It was an equation that no one could solve. All the variables were present, except for one. And no matter how many times Nicholas worked through every possibility, he never found the magic number that held true to every condition in the equation’s original design. Some months, he came close when his fingers struck the dial. For the stagnant part of five years and perhaps even longer than that, nothing significant improved what could’ve been done. Just the thought of it, now intertwined with the CyberLife affair, curled Nicholas’ lips.

Three years of radio silence plus two years of metaphorical teeth and blood did quite a number on the fraction Nicholas calculated when he pieced what he knew together. In short: the finite conclusion for Connor and him didn’t exist. It was a limit that leaned closer to infinity because that was how far, mathematically, the chasm between Connor and he had grown. No closer were they to be brothers, even unlikelier to be strangers when the same blood flowed through their veins. They were identically different in almost every aspect that didn’t use their biology, psychology, health, or even preferences to try to link them back together.

Crude as the threads were cut of any special bond that tied their pinkies like a promise, perhaps this was the only way they could survive. Not just as people destined to be each other’s equals, but as two ends of a spectrum that needed to work _\-- like anyone else_ \-- to converge in the middle, to see eye to eye. If that wasn’t a bullet point for the Human Condition, Nicholas wouldn’t know what else to think as he massaged his forehead. Rubbing out knots with his knuckles as he looked out from the corner of his eye, mapping out exactly of what he had to do.

In terms of CyberLife’s next move, he didn’t _have_ to consult with Connor. A loved one by any other name was just as sweet, and Amanda was a suitable candidate for such a discussion. Nicholas could visit her some time down the week, sit and chat in the Zen Garden as Carolina Wrens serenaded the turn of every phrase, and finish things there with a tender embrace. Perhaps, lingering in each other’s warmth to make up for a third that would never come home.

However, with every step beneath his gait in the matter of his choices, it felt easier to fall back onto old habits. Such as the phone that materialized along his palm, such as the fiddling of his tie as Nicholas tightened it -- bandaging his broken pieces before they crumbled, and such as the glint of the moonlight and every triangle at its shade. Stamped Nicholas’ office as if he was in a noir film, a fringe of soft horror accentuated the blue in his eyes as his phone nestled beside his ear. The number he dialed wasn’t Amanda’s.

Even if any and all hopes of recovery in his and Connor’s relationship were next to nigh, failure wasn’t an option that Nicholas could let slide. Not anymore _\-- a tremor in his hand before he steadied it with his thumb._

To turn his head and play pretend was just as delusional as whatever cock-and-bull story Connor wove in his sleep so he could rest at night. To give up meant giving up on Connor, and it was a bloodstain that Nicholas couldn’t wash from his hands. The coppery smell festered like a sore, burrowing deeper into Nicholas’ senses every time he ran his touch beneath the metaphorics of his mind’s running water. The stains never pooled down the drain, still clinging to his skin out of betrayal. Out of the same betrayal of when Connor reached out his hand all those years ago and Nicholas pulled away, so suddenly, and watched his brother fall into an abyss that never let him go.

It was an odd image -- both in reality and in the metaphorics of the mind when Nicholas, himself, replayed the motions of his younger-self as if everything before him was merely a hologram. Behind his eyes to a world only he could see, beyond his desk dropped a ravine where Connor dangled at its seams. Coarse rocks etched into his palms and bled past his fingers as Connor tried to remain strong, already his strength was caving on him as his shoulders buckled under the strain. Between every breath, this spectral representation of the past never looked up from the ledge until a younger Nicholas appeared from nothing. As if an invisible veil separated the end from the continuum, such as the fall of one while the other stood tall.

_“It’s up to you to decide how this story ends.”_

Those same words, muttered from over the edge, were once muttered face-to-face when Connor and Nicholas had met about three years ago. Within a waiting room while the person of interest _\-- the whom that reunited the brothers here --_ laid still on a hospital bed, fast asleep as a ventilator gently lifted and dropped her chest. When Nicholas peered into the memory with all of this in consideration, he could only see a narrow sliver of what he knew now. The only thing that registered to his younger-self was Connor and the tremor that twitched every joint in his hands. Connor rose from his seat, nearly on the verge of crumbling if he couldn’t lean on Nicholas’ shoulder, but Nicholas drew away.

A slight similarity was portrayed in the rift-analogy when a younger Nicholas crouched at the edge of the cliff and clasped his hand around one of Connor’s. But halfway as he pulled his brother up, a small smile loosely folded over Nicholas’ lips before he let go. Only traces of Connor’s fingertips were left on his palm as his brother fell. Connor was figuratively dead before he realized what had happened.

_‘What makes you think he’ll reach out again?’_ \-- the pen in his hand, poised like a cigarette between his fingers, drooped slightly before Nicholas brought the plastic to his mouth. Biting on the edge of the cap, he had to suppress his doubts even if it was a bitter swallow. For just as his pen was twisted by his tongue, Nicholas’ phone stopped vibrating beside his ear. If voicemail didn’t kick in... _then the breathing he heard, that he thought was his own, was his brother’s._

Connor picked up the call. Those five words -- as simple as they were -- barely teetered a breath or word over Nicholas’ tongue when he steadied himself. Spitting the pen out from his mouth, he leaned closely into his phone’s speaker.

“Con…” Articulating his thoughts to a man he hadn’t spoken to in years didn’t need anything more than just confirmation. Something simple that Nicholas could manage as he grasped between what was happening and what he imagined was happening. _“Connor?”_

The windows of the mind could only reflect the best of one’s attributes, not the worst of another’s. If so in the moment when a mirror allowed a glance into the chasm Nicholas thought only he could see, he felt the drawl of a desert howl as the winds scorched his fingertips. For at the exact moment a paper airplane was relinquished from his touch, his point of view spanned across a graveyard of similar models. Never did reach their intended destination, never once did Nicholas see a return call. Amidst the hundreds he threw and lost, he always returned for the one that might made it back. So as his freshest model soared across the rift, slightly tousled by the wind, it persevered like every make and model that had come before until it reached the other side of the rift. And if Nicholas squinted on the thin etch of a line of where he thought he saw Connor, his eyes didn’t trick him. Another paper plane flew. Crumbled and misshapen, unlike Nicholas’ last attempt, but it made it past the ravine and dove between Nicholas’ shoes.

_‘I was wondering if after all these years, you’d like to meet’_ \-- scribbled along the back of Connor’s plane when Nicholas cradled it in his hands. Though the message remained unspoken in reality, it conveyed itself when there were slight disturbances over the line. Of the little adjustments Connor did to hold his phone more comfortably, all so he could hear Nicholas more clearly than he had before.

_“Yeah…”_ A light _tsk_ to his tongue, accompanied by taps of the keyboard as Connor worked. Perhaps his phone was propped against his ear and shoulder, simply another balance for the juggle that had shaped his life. _“It’s been...It’s been a while.”_

_‘I think I’ve called you over a thousand times’_ \-- a slip of a smile curved the line of Nicholas’ lips, softening his expression into a muted gray that could walk the line between black and white. Sentimental fluff had a way of curtaining the senses, giving a fresher tint to what had longed decay. The effects had yet to work on Nicholas, but he remained steady so he couldn’t be easily swayed. “Do you mind if we chat?”

_“Sure.”_ A bit of a chuckle filtered through the line. _“I’m transferring course materials onto a new website, so my mouth is free. Can’t say the same for my hands.”_ Nicholas could imagine Connor lifting his fingers from his keyboard to wiggle them around.

“Easier for the students?”

_“A lot easier: all of their courses and grades in one place. It’s genius.”_ A pause was lifted, much as the teacup that probably stood near Connor’s work when he reached for it. Connor slurped and Nicholas found himself somewhat relieved. It really felt like the old Connor was talking to him. It felt like they could talk as brothers than anyone different, but a twitch got the better of Nicholas’ thoughts as he tested the waters before him. Slowly at first, merely a poke with his toes before he submerged his foot forward.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up my call.”

_“Would you have preferred if I didn’t?”_ Nicholas imagined a smug expression on Connor’s face as he reformatted his syllabus. Realizing the snark in his tone, Connor softened his next delivery. _“I’m expecting a call from the..., and I picked up without realizing who I’d be talking to.”_

“I can hang up if -- “

_“No.”_ A slight rhythm drummed over Connor’s desk. _“I want to hear your voice.”_ There was a pause -- a lengthy one, that could’ve meant Connor was finishing his tea -- before a sigh followed afterwards. Creaks of Connor’s revolving seat trickled into the call as he settled in, rocked into comfort as perhaps one of his hands blocked the light of his bedroom from his eyes. _“Is it...Is it too late to start over?”_

“I don’t know, Connor.” Perhaps, it was the world’s one and only truth. “What are you thinking?”

_“I’m thinking about ending this call to call you back, but what if my mind slips away?”_ Connor fiddled with something on his end of the line. _“Sometimes, we can’t change what happened -- but, we can improve from where we left off.”_

Nicholas could only give an assuring _‘hmm’_ as he flipped to a new page in his notes and began to jot down everything that he could sense from the other side. Having a twin, who formerly was an English-major, paved the tracks for all the little nuances and figures of speech that Connor could slip at his disposal. Just like a book, everything had more than one meaning when it slipped from Connor's tongue, and Nicholas could only toe the line of the possibilities.

What kind of game was Connor playing? To save or be saved, what role was stitched to their clothes? Were they merely talking or was someone filling in as a psychiatrist? Nicholas scribbled that down before he adjusted his hold on his phone. If Connor wanted to leave, he ignored all of the chances leading up to now. That was significant, or so Nicholas hoped when he squinted and wondered if he could find the carrot dangling from a string as Connor waved it around on his fold of the rift.

“I heard about the new policy change at the university.” A turn to his seat as Nicholas steered the sway of the conversation. _“If applicable for those without a traditional classroom, professors are required to hold routinely hours throughout the week for students and their inquiries,”_ Nicholas recited from memory. “What are your thoughts on it?”

_“It’s going to be…”_ Connor’s voice faded for a moment as he mixed cream and sugar when he poured himself a fresher brew of tea. The rim of his teacup barely kissed his lips in his response. _“It’s already going to be different, but I’ve sorted how transportation would go.”_

“Don’t tell me you’ll be using Detroit Taxi.”

_“You use Detroit Metro.”_

Nicholas bit the inside of his cheek. “I have a monthly pass and CyberLife compensates for the transportation fees. The university doesn’t, and the traffic has gotten worse since you’ve been gone.” A slip of his fringe curtained Nicholas’ eyes until he tilted his face. “You’ll be completely in the backseat of someone else’s schedule.”

_“I don’t think I can sit behind the wheel and not crash.”_ Connor mused on his thought for a while, perhaps his attention stolen when he glanced at something beyond the frame of his desk. _“Besides, staying in the backseat gives me time to -- “_

_‘Run away from the world’_ \-- Nicholas’ pen paused in mid-twirl between his fingers as he heard Connor’s actual response. Though there was an art of casualness in how Connor composed himself, the paint was uneven and strips peeled down the centerfold. Brushed to the side by a wayward thumb, Nicholas could look past the facade and still see the remnants of the broken man that used to haunt him in his dreams.

“I understand.” Though the lie slipped easily from his tongue, Nicholas’ face would’ve betrayed him if Connor could see him now.

_“Enough about me -- “_ did Connor catch on? Nicholas hadn’t noticed before, but Connor’s keyboard was oddly quiet for a man that was supposed to be working. _“ -- I want to hear about you.”_

Hatred -- _if any of its bad blood still lingered in their veins_ \-- wasn’t an emotion that could sustain for any length of time unless it was obverse to love. Love bore its face on the other side of the coin if they dared to flip, but whether _Tails_ or _Heads_ landed wouldn’t change the streak that had strung them both. If desperation was a form of love, then maybe they were closer to the flip than anticipated. But still, the heart remained behind its guard -- _at least, Nicholas tucked his behind his tie._

“Stressed beyond belief sounds about right.” A smile slipped between Nicholas’ frown. “Working overtime tonight. I think you know why.”

_“CyberLife affairs.”_ Connor pulled his fingers until he heard a pop between the bones.

“It’s not as bad as it could be.” An honest remark on Nicholas’ part, perhaps one of the few he sprinkled throughout their conversation when he set his pen down. “I’ve figured a way to sway the company back into the public’s favor.”

_“It’s amazing that you get to be part of that.”_ The first cracks that birthed the chasm emerged, Nicholas suspected that they did as the slight warble accented the end of Connor’s phrase.

If this was a card game, Connor revealed the _Heart_ tucked in his sleeve when he reached to pick up his draw. Nicholas had peeled every layer and now, for the first time, the _real_ Connor was listening to him. Connor didn’t say it with his words or with his tone, but in the silence that crept afterwards when it wasn’t jealousy that stiffened his tongue. It only entailed memories of how he was usually two or three steps behind Nicholas, never able to catch up. Only when he thought he could, Nicholas only widened the gap.

It was something he never disclosed in earnest _\-- only implied by the twist of his words --_ and if asked, Connor would say that he had matured from the thought and it didn’t bother him anymore. But if someone truly listened to Connor as he explained himself, it was easy to pick out the fluff.

If Nicholas had been the same man as he was four or five years ago, he wouldn’t have cared or wouldn’t have noticed these little lies and walls that Connor had built in his name. Whether to protect himself, or to distance himself from an issue that he couldn’t face _._ Emotions were messy and frankly, it was a weakness that pinned Connor down more times than he could count. It was a perpetual spiral that led to many things so he could feel numb inside, and cigarettes weren’t always his first choice. But then, if Nicholas could help when he knew he could do something, cigarettes weren’t the following choice either.

“I want to share the spoils with you. Tomorrow.” Without Connor physically in front of him, Nicholas could imagine the turn of Connor’s face when he stared directly at his phone. Perhaps, wondering if he had picked up the right call, or if some sort of scruple had entered into Nicholas’ train of thought. No such thing occurred, Nicholas reassured Connor on that. Just as he pulled away from his phone for a moment to gaze down at his notes, a picture frame near the edge of his desk caught his gaze instead.

It was a photograph that Amanda had taken when Connor and Nicholas were around nine years old -- cheek to cheek as they held up the biggest fish they had caught, each. While Connor snagged a minnow at the end of his line, a trout dangled off the end of Nicholas’. Amanda’s camera at the time could only capture the blur of its tail as it struggled, reddening Nicholas’ thighs with every slap until Connor pressed his hands around the trout’s middle and kept it still. Though wry amusement shaded Nicholas’ crooked smile, Connor’s grin brightened the experience into something.. _.oddly memorable._ At the time, Nicholas glanced from the corner of his eye and couldn't comprehend why Connor was so happy. Not until he was an adult, staring back at the memory now as his thumb traced over Connor’s smile before he pulled his hand away.

“I can pick you up after work and we can have an outing together, just before school starts. Have dinner, see Mom, and…”

Nicholas found himself near the chasm again before he could finish his train of thought. Teetering, just enough where he could hear the crumbled flaps of his fallen paper planes down below. As if he was dangling from a spider’s thread and when he turned his head, coming down the web wasn’t his brother. No, not with the way the figure flicked his lighter. It danced like a coin in an endless waltz, as fingers lifted and fell as the flames and outer shell spun down the steps with each the figure took underneath his gait.

_“Nicholas Cornelius Stern --_ “ Unlike the Stern that had creaked the doors of his heart and allowed Nicholas to peer through, Connor Eugene Anderson emerged like a spectre and blocked the silver of the heart’s opening. A wry twist to his smile _\-- a sight that Nicholas had seen before, reflected in Connor’s younger eyes --_ before he shut Nicholas out. The familiar stench of cigarettes burned the inside of Nicholas’ nose. He pulled his face away from his phone. Reality dabbled with bits of fiction as the Connor he knew was replaced with a man that wore his face and held two-thirds of his name. _“Small talk and family -- don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”_

Instead of leaving room for a second chance, Nicholas felt the gaping hole left by a _.457 Magnum_ when the copycat shot into Nicholas’ heart inside the rift-analogy. Just as it was impossible to survive a bullet to the heart, just as it was probable that Connor had set Nicholas up from the start.

Not the _real_ Connor, but the Connor that emerged after his wife’s death. This... _to call this split in his brother’s behavior..._ to even call it _‘Connor’_ left a bitter taste in Nicholas’ mouth. Hands pressed against his wound, Nicholas could barely move as nothing more than a copy pointed the end of its weapon at the shell of its former-self. Nicholas could make-out the fuzzy blur of the real Connor’s fingers, how they occasionally twitched for they knew something was wrong, but Connor couldn’t move.

When he relinquished his control, he lost it all. Now, he laid at the mercy of a past he could no longer control. It could kill him -- if it wanted to. Connor would die, watching as it took what was his away from him _\-- for a third time in this life._

This entity, Nicholas decided to call it, considered pain and death as mere synonymous of each other. Both of which, Connor and Nicholas were no strangers to when they endured the bites and still nursed the stings to this day. For it so -- if the entity thought it had conquered in this battle of the wits, it didn’t know Nicholas as well as it thought it did.

It didn’t scare him, not anymore as Nicholas managed to crawl from his side of the rift. Bit by bit, inching forward as bits of rock irritated his wound and embedded into his flesh. Fists curled around a mound of bloody rocks, Nicholas could feel himself slipping as this world behind his eyes tilted like an hourglass. All the sand, all the rocks, and all the wasted time from the past gathered into rolling mounds. Nearly peeling Nicholas from the surface as he barely held on, his body twisted as his world turned upside down. Only his fold of the chasm turned, like a page in a book, while the entity approached Connor’s limp body.

_‘Why Connor? Why did you have to wake up?’_ \-- the entity rolled Connor over with its foot before it crouched down, the barrel of its magnum trailed down to the centre of Connor’s chest. Thrusted between the main fold of his shirt, a mere inch separated a bullet from at least six inches of flesh.

_‘Look where your dreams of freedom have gotten you’ --_ not a hint of remorse, not even a hint of sarcasm glinted a bit of light into the entity’s eyes as it folded its hand over Connor’s eyes, as if he was falling asleep. A muffled _‘shhh’_ slipped from the entity's tongue.

_‘You’ve been a great disappointment to your loved ones’ --_ the entity cocked its head to the side when it lifted its gaze, amused as Nicholas tried claw himself to the surface before the sands of time could drown him still. _‘You’ve been a bigger disappointment to me, but fortunately...’_ \-- finger trained at the trigger, a bit of a crooked smile was etched across the entity’s lips -- _‘...I’m the one who decides how this story ends.’_

_‘How this story ends…’_ \-- the ticks of a clock echoed from somewhere in this mindspace. Every tick resonated like a thump from Nicholas’ heart as this world of his design grew sharp behind his eyes. Clearer around the edges as sand crawled past his face, but that touch and that sound were mere blurs to Nicholas’ senses. All he could hear was the entity, all he could see was Connor. So close, yet so far. Nicholas could almost feel Connor’s hand when he reached out. Though his hand was scratched and bloodied, though his arm ached and burns seared beneath his skin as bones began to break from under the weight of sand, Nicholas never pulled his touch away.

For Connor to know that he didn’t have to bear the weight of the world on his own, to know that he wasn’t alone in this struggle, it would feel like a weight crumbling off from Connor’s shoulders so he could stand and face tomorrow as if it was a distant yesterday.

_‘How this story ends is for me to decide’_ \-- every strain ruptured a new pain that tightened the coil around Nicholas’ neck -- _‘This was your gift to me, brother.’_

Nicholas’ breathing slowed into a drawl as his vision slipped from focus. Blurred with a mesh of colors before he could focus-in. His hand was heavy with the drop of a gun, tight between his fingers as his hand steadied behind every tremor. Only one of his eyes could truly see what laid beyond the rift, and it widened as the _real_ Connor disappeared under the entity's magnum. As if his body was made of fireflies, they dispersed as blue and yellow lights from the danger of the grave. Just as the entity realized what had happened, Nicholas sharpened his aim. A plume of smoke wisped into the air like a cigarette as the recoil jerked the gun out from Nicholas’ hand.

The shot wasn’t fatal; however, the entity was paralyzed before the bullet ever left its body. It didn’t mean it couldn’t feel the pain. It just couldn’t do anything about it as it fell from the edge of oblivion.

“Tell me, Connor.” Nicholas’ phone nearly slipped from his grasp as he tucked it close against his ear. “How many times do you wake up and stare at the cold side of your bed -- convinced that it’s your fault that Kristen died?”

In the silence that followed, in the silence where Nicholas could only hear his heartbeat on the line, he breathed softly. Focused on a steady, yet gentle rhythm that Connor could follow. For a long time, Nicholas didn’t hear anything. But just like the paper airplanes before they died, Nicholas didn’t give up. He never stopped reaching until he heard the accompaniment of Connor’s breaths. Perhaps in the midst of breathing where one brother felt vulnerable to his other, Nicholas heard every word that had long laid dormant in the catacombs of Connor’s heart. And perhaps, Nicholas caught a drop of something more as Conner’s sniffles wrinkled the silence in his heart.

For the first time since Kristen’s death, Nicholas heard him cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nicholas has a….weird imagination. Actually, he was supposed pretty normal, but I threw that out the window. Haha. There was purpose to the madness of his imagination, but I think I could’ve executed that a lot better if I was a more competent writer. While editing, I tried to make it clear between reality and what was in his head, but I’m not sure if it was clear enough. I apologize for experimenting on that and if y’all have questions about the mind-sequence, I’ll be happy to answer your inquiries.
> 
> Other than that -- this is a wrap. We’ve concluded Act 1 of the story. All introductions have been made, our conflicts have been introduced, we have a lot of development and learning left to go, and we can steamroll ahead into Act 2 -- _arguably, the longest arc of this story and you learn why the heck I even began this story._ There’s going to be love, there’s going to be rekindled relationships, there’s gonna be the ups and downs of recovery, there’s going to be misunderstandings and understandings. So sit back, relax, and thank you all for the wonderful and continued support.

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ll like to see future fic previews, audios for this story, or just DBH content in general...check out my tumblr @joeys-piano


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